Analysis of Music

Genres: R’N’B

R’N’B Genre

In most R’N’B music videos we see a lot of the same thing, but there are a few exceptions for some particular music videos. This mind map is showing some of the key conventions we find in an R’N’B Music video. This type of genre is more about gang culture, sex, drugs and alcohol. It is a popular genre of music and most of the more popular songs get into the top charts. In these music videos the main content the lyrics sing about is sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Most of the time we see women being portrayed as sex objects and we can see things like this happening through conventions like Mise-en-scene, where we see women in revealing clothing, showing a lot of skin, which is mainly for male attention and the target audience.

We can see how most of the time males are the authoritative characters throughout the music videos because of their actions and their behaviour. Most of the time we don’t see the females leading the roles, it is the males the majority of the time.

Typically in the likes of the R’N’B music videos we see that it is typically black origins in which it is revolved around. This might be because of the type of music they create.

Most of the time we see the males wearing typically baggy denim clothing, which hangs off their bodies, to represent them as being chilled and laid back. The props used in most of the music video are mainly guns, drugs and bling. This is used in most cases to live up their expectations, and to show people what they are like personality wise.

The content of videos also seem violent and disturbing some of the times. Suggesting status

and also could be suggesting wealth of the personalities.

We see a lot of representations of ethnicities throughout the music videos through different aspects; mise-en-scene, lighting, clothing, locations and body language.

Beyonce - Flawless: Analysis

For my research on R’N’B I am going to focus one of my music video analysis onto Beyonce - Flawless. This is one of Beyonce’s more popular and recent songs, in which she performs a narrative video to her fans and audiences. After looking at the key features and conventions to an R’N’B music video I have noticed that this one I am about to point out is shown quite a lot of the time, which is the idea of the female being seen as a sexual object, and this can be shown through the use of mise-en-scene of the costumes - through the idea of her not wearing wearing much, giving off the sense of her being very revealing.

This again suggests one of the key conventions in which I have established in my mind map - which is the way the males dress, which is usually baggy denim jeans and jackets. Also another convention I picked out was that it is mainly black origin based, but this video goes against this and also uses white males.

The idea of ‘bling’ on show all the time is reinforced in this print screen, where we see the focus and attention on her jewelry on her neck.

Violence is shown heavily throughout the music video - living up to expectations of average R’n’B music videos. We can see that the violence effect is coming off even more because of the use of mise-en-scene through editing, as the colour scheme is black and white, suggesting the very diverse sides to maybe an argument. Also at this part of the music video the number of people around in one area, bashing into each other suggests the idea of them fighting.

We also see the typical love interests going on in the backgrounds of the music video, which is what we would see in an average R’n’B music video. Also this print screen reflects on the idea of the content being all about sex, drugs, alcohol and partying. We can see this through the use of lyrics, upbeat music, body language, and mise-en-scene, as we see the women wearing provocative clothing, suggesting they are interested in the male attention.

Beyonce - Flawless: Analysis

Jay Z - Hard Knock Life: Analysis

I am now looking at Jay Z’s Music video - Hard Knock Life. This video comes under the category of R’n’B because of it’s conventions it holds. It is clear to define this as an R’n’B music video because of the conventions like this print screen showing the clothing - mise-en-scene, as we can see that the majority of the main people in the video are wearing baggy clothing, baseball caps and are wearing bling like diamonds, rings and necklaces. We can also see that the convention of it being a typically black origin, as we know that the artist himself is black and the surrounding people are also.

This print screen again shows the content of the music video and it could be implying that the artists are all about the alcohol, drugs and violence. We can see again the type of clothing R’n’B artists will wear. In this shot we can see that Jay Z is wearing a baggy shirt, and he is wearing denim jeans. This reflects on the idea of one of the key conventions of the R’n’B style genre of music.

Another one of the typical conventions we would see in an R’n’B music video is the idea of violence and intimidation. This print screen suggests this as we can see that their body language does not seem friendly or happy.

Kanye West - Stronger: Analysis

For my final music video I am going to analyse I will be looking at Kanye West - Stronger. This music video came out over 5 years ago, and is an R’n’B genre of music. I have chosen to look at this song because I think that the music video is interesting, as we see some differences to our average, typical conventions from an R’n’B music video. From this print screen we can already see that one of focuses on the conventions has been displayed; which has been shown through the mise-en-scene. The clothing and the body language suggests that it is an R’n’B music video as we can see the baggy denim and him standing there giving off the impression that he wants to look ‘cool’.

This idea that there is a female in more of the R’n’B music videos who is supposed to be seen as an object is used in this music video, as we can see in this printscreen that the focus is on the females face and enhancing the eyes, showing the importance of the female being there, also suggesting that the song is based on her.

This screen shot shows the use of camera angles, as the low angle enhances the importance of the female.