My Chosen Genre

For my A2 music video, I have chosen the song ‘Raining Men’ by Rihanna, featuring Nicki Minaj. This song falls into the hip-hop genre, which consists of stylised rhythmic music that is commonly accompanied by rapping. The four main styles within the hip-hop genre are rapping, scratching, dancing and graffiti writing. In my chosen song, rapping is fairly common from both of the artists.
Hip-hop is a very wide in terms of its subgenres. In relation to my chosen song, I feel that the subgenres within hip-hop that link best towards its lyrics are ‘Crunk’ and ‘Conscious Rap’. Established in the 1990s, Crunk is a chaotic mixture of club-orientated beats and a high-energy, repetitive chorus. Conscious rap songs, however, focus on portraying uplifting messages with the idea that social change comes from self-knowledge and personal discovery. I feel that this subgenre links with my song as ‘Raining Men’ is a song largely aimed at women, with the key message that they should not worry about any one male, as there’s ‘plenty more fish in the sea’. This links well with today’s society, in which woman are slowly developing a balance with men by becoming more independent and powerful. Jason Mitchell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories, which are used by both the music industry and the audience in order to interpret knowledge of current society into media texts. Therefore, ‘Raining Men’ reflects these ideas, by interpreting concepts about the growing equality between men and women into their video and lyrics in order to create a very feminist song, ‘keep your money I can buy my own drink’.
Conventionally, hip-hop artists are usually portrayed in their videos to be surrounded by wealth. Particularly within videos for male artists, we associate hip-hop with cars, girls and expensive jewellery. Female hip-hop artists are often seen in elaborate, expensive outfits. Most hip-hop videos are performance based and commonly involve dancing. For example, in Nicki Minaj’s video for ‘Massive Attack’, Nicki is represented as a wealthy feminist, as we see her driving a pink Lamborghini through the desert. Nicki is dressed elaborately, though is fairly scantily clad, and is frequently seen wearing large items of jewellery. Rapper Sean Garrett features within the song, and is seen representing typical male hip-hop artists within the video. For example, in one scene we see him wearing a baseball cap, baggy jeans and a baggy white vest; he also wears large items of ‘bling’. In another scene, we see him with only a pair of baggy jeans on, making his tattoos visible down his arms and chest. In an earlier scene we can also see that Nicki Minaj also has a tattoo down her arm. Tattoos are also a conventional aspect associated with Hip-hop artists. Additionally, similarly typical of hip-hop artists are black sunglasses, and typical of their videos is often alcohol, which codes for the wealthy lifestyles of the artists.
Typically, hip-hop videos are usually associated with black culture and are filmed in either the streets or in the club. However, as black and white cultures become more and more equal in society, white people are beginning to be incorporated within these videos. For example, rap artist Eminem is seen to be one of the most successful artists within this particular genre. In addition, the ideas of the genre have also evolved over time, an idea which is argued by Steve Neale (1995). For example, hip-hop originated from African American culture and held Jazz influences. The music began from a less wealthy culture, where artists sang and rapped about social, economic and political realities. It is clear from more modern music videos that they have evolved and have become more about the wealth and success.
Overall, hip-hop artists incorporate aspects into their video that code for wealth, and cause the audience to desire their lifestyles. Many videos use close-ups of the artist in order for the audience to visualise their expressions more clearly, and in order to show that the artist is important and powerful. The hip-hop genre is typically one of the most popular music genres for youths, and the lyrics are intended to relate to this audience by creating meaning and representing society.