Lupe Fiasco- Words I Never Said

Music Video AnalysisBy Ellis Parkinson

Introduction• Lupe fiasco is am American artist best

known for his work as a rapper and producer.

• The song is called words I never said from his studio album called lasers.

• It was released in early February 2011• The video itself was directed by Sanaa

Hamri who has produced a lot of the other videos in this genre.

• The song is about not saying what you should have said for fear of something else and the words reflect that very well.

PLOT• The whole plot of the video is based around people not

being able to say what they want and being restricted from talking. The main character played by the artist is trying to fight back against the system and does this using a different types of new media technology as well as being able to fight etc to save a women deemed to be in distress and capture to the system. The video is more of a narrative video as it all talks about the previously told story. The video has a very big connection to the chorus in terms of the line about not being able to say what they want.

Genre Characteristics• A lot of the characteristics

for rap and hip hop videos normally include lots of pictures of the artist with flash cars and attractive women with and this is not necessarily reflected in this video as it a lot more political and even though it does have shots of him there more political based and not around the normal conventions.

Meeting Demands Of The Record Label • A record label normally ask for

lots of clear pictures of the artist or artist and this is done because they the artist is almost seen as an ‘object’ that can be sold and that’s why they need to advertise them. In the Lupe Fiasco video they have a lot of these as well as the more artistic things to have a mix of the two. As well they put in adverts for his new album with the more high tech bar code posters that lead you to web links for the product.

TARGET AUDIENCE• I would suggest that the overall target of this video goes

further than the ordinary hip hop audience and maybe move into people who are more interested in things like systems and a more impressive music video audience who like videos like that rather than the normal candy pop performance videos that some hip hop artists produce. So I think that this would also entice a different audience. He does this by using video footage of different controversial topics as well as man made atrocities from around the world to give ideas of a restricted system they also do this with the outfits on all of the extras as they have masks that restrict them from talking and this further adds to the idea of restriction.

CAMERA WORK, EDITING AND MIS EN SCENE

• Mis En Scene- He uses a lot of outfits in terms of setting out the ‘system’ and those that live under it and he does this with things like the guards outfits and then the masks that impede the normal people from talking. They also use video clips of certain world events to add to the effect of the video.

• They also use a lot of certain shots for instance close ups are the most commonly shot and the editing is really fast paced throughout the whole video and a lot of the shots are shaky to add effect to it.