Jay-Z - 99 Problems

1. Music video that demonstrates genre characteristics

• 'Hood' area of unemployed men- Brooklyn, New York.
• Jay-Z makes a point of drawing our attention to where he's from by showing us his hoodie.
• Representation of a gangster lifestyle; cruising in cars, dog fighting, loitering on streets, getting pulled over by police, basketball and guns.
• Street dancing and freestyle
• Scantily clad 'sexy' women who are supposed to be looking sexy, but actually look cheap.
• Stereotypical race representations- white guy in a suit and the police officer, while the black guys are the jailbirds and loiterers.
• Criminality/money.
• Goes against convention of representation of wealth-lacks fancy cars, clothes, bling and women.
• Women are only a minor element in this video, usually, Hip Hop videos would have more shots of sexy women.
• Shooting at the end of the video reflects the image of gangster being cool

2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals

• When Jay-Z said 'From the hood', he pulls his down.
• A radio is shown when he says, 'Radio.
• Women are shown when Jay-Z says, 'Bitch'.
• The camera flashes images of criminal identity shots as he says, 'Paparazzi'.
• Overall, the images illustrate the lyrics, sometimes literally and sometimes in a subtle way.
• The theme of the song is that Jay-Z has all these problems as the video is showing us.

3. Relationship between music and visuals

• The video is cut in time with the beat of the song.
• The music is hard hitting and aggressive sounding with emphasis on the beat rather than melody.
• The visuals are also harsh looking and the edits are fast paced to emphasize this aggression.

4. Close ups of the artist and their motif/s

• A lot of the shots have Jay-Z in them.
• There are close ups of other men that look aggressive.
• There are shots of women in long and mid shots because they are not that important.
• There is less emphasis on Jay-Z on his own as he is already an established artist who doesn't require such exposure.
• Jay-Z has his own record label as well as being part of Island/Def Jam, which is quite an independent company.

5. References to the notion if looking and voyeuristic treatment of women

• Jay-Z puts his fingers over the camera so that it seems as though the audience are looking through his fingers.
• X-Ray vision shot of the money in the boot allows it to see what would normally be concealed.
• Scopophilic treatment of women is quite uncomfortable to watch as it seems unnecessary.
• The early establishing shots are almost point of view shots, creating the impression that the audience is looking around the hood.
• There a video of Jay-Z outside a subway station.

6. Inter textual references

• The video of himself outside of the subway station may well be referencing himself.