Lupe FiascoAs The Show Goes On

Genre Characteristics • Lupe fiasco is a Hip-Hop/Rap artist and his videos

portray this through many elements like spotlights/strobe lights, large audience, screaming crowd, huge stage, flashing lights, ect. This is a common characteristic which is found in many Hip-Hop/Rap artist videos like Drake. This common characteristic is mainly found in videos like this because it is easily recognisable even if the video had no sound. This video also had women in the video, who weren't half naked but still females, which is a common feature in this genre of music. Lupe Fiasco also looked glamorous and rich as he continued walking to a ‘massive’ show which shows that this genre of music is “Expensive/Wealthy”.

Lyrics and Visuals • There was a lot of relationship between

lyrics and visual. This helps the artist to amplify what he is saying as Lupe would be talking about 5 different topics and to help emphasise them he counted to 5 with his fingers to show the audience what he’s talking about. There was also another scene where he says ‘… tell those kids that’s living in the ghetto that the n-ggas holdin back that the World is theirs! Yeah yeah, the World is yours, I was once that little boy…’ and Lupe changed into a younger version of himself which helped amplify the fact that he was once a little kid living in the ghetto but has now made it. (This was shown through a invisible cut which gave it a smooth transition).

Music and Visuals • There was a link between the music and the

visual. Firstly we had an extreme close up of the artist side face whilst in the dressing room to help the viewer identify the artist and help new viewers to see his face just in case they’ve never seen it before. A lot of medium/long shots were used throughout the video to help portray the artist but we don’t get this until 0:54 were the music becomes more upbeat, then that’s when Lupe first looks into the camera and starts to rap.

• The other link between music and visual was after 0:54 the cuts were in sync with the music which helped emphasise the music.

Need to sell artist• As it was a performance based video there

was a lot of the artist on screen whether is was his face or his body, but we always knew that it was him on the stage. This helped the audience to have a constant visual of the artist (Selling The Artist) and allow them to connect with the artist as he performed directly into the camera.

• As he was on screen nearly all the time, this helps to sell the artist as people are able to relate to the artist and the lyrics he used lyrics, and as this was an up-coming song, the use of the artist being on the screen 90% of the times helps to sell the artist.

Voyeurism • This song was all about the artist as he

was mainly on screen but there was a use of females in the video (as it is a convention of Hip-Hop/Rap videos) but the females were only fans, or part of the loud crowd Lupe was performing too. I believe this is because Lupe wanted the audience to concentrate on him and no one else, as he is the artist and this is his song and this video is all about him from a young kid living in the ‘ghetto’ to him performing on stage!

Intertextuality • This song made references to films and shows

themselves. Showing the red carpet. Showing stage lights, showing the opening of a show its self. It also made reference to Michael Jackson – Bad, as Michael turned into a little child and performed so did Lupe Fiasco. But other than that I believe the artist wanted the audience to concentrate on the artist (Lupe) himself.