Video Deconstruction: From The Outside Looking In



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL4YsTb7huA


        I approached this project with extreme bias. Hip-Hop/Rap has always been a genre of music that has raised controversy; in 2018, that is no exception. However, increasingly, ignorance regarding the music and the culture of Hip-Hop/Rap has become acceptable. To showcase this sentiment in the video, I've made the clips where ignorance regarding the genre and its icons - specifically Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar - black and white. This conscious decision was done to showcase how narrow their view of the genre is - not because they are unable to understand the genre, but because they refuse to understand the genre. The talking heads/news pundits/terrible researchers that comment on the culture - solely to push whatever agenda they need for their show - clearly do not know what they are talking about. The problem is not that they are talking about the genre; the more people who talk about Hip-Hop/Rap, the better for the advancement of the culture. However, it becomes painfully evident that people who do not understand the culture or are not a part of it, cannot comment on the genre. Preference and your liking for the music is subjective - if you don't like it fine. But, with that disdain comes a lack of understanding for the music and culture that leaves out the opportunity for nuance and context in the conversations surrounding them. 
        Also, there is an element of not so much racism - at least not outright racism - but more prejudice regarding the genre. It’s mostly conveyed through dismissive language that comes across as just simply “less than” and inferior for the people reporting on it who do not care what they are spewing out. To exhibit how silly that dismissive and problematic that type of language is - I sped up moments such as Tomi Lahren explicitly calls out Jay-Z being a drug dealer for 14 years. The purpose was to make them sound cartoony and not to be taken serious when talking about this topic.
        I understand that this video will comes off as political. And perhaps it is. But I think that’s the rhetoric that comes with each political affiliation. It happens that most of the commentators in the video, who speak despairingly of the genre and its artists, are right wing. I, myself, do not consider myself a republic or a democrat. But I do have more of an open-minded view as it comes to politics. However, Hip-Hop does not have a political affiliation - but it does associate itself with more left leaning beliefs. Hip-Hop/Rap has always given a voice to those who don’t have a voice in the mainstream, those who have been oppressed, and to those who show a lifestyle that no one else can speak for. I don’t like to believe that race plays a part in this commentary, but I think it’d be ignorant to believe otherwise. 
         That said, I think there is an interesting conversation that could arise out of this. Why is a genre like Rock - where its superstars are celebrated and put on a pedestal for their lifestyle, drug use, and womanizing - but Hip-Hop/Rap is vilified for it? Could it be that one is predominantly white and one is predominantly black/people of color? I don’t have the answer, but this is the type of dialogue I want to create with this video. I hope all of this translates from the video - if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to learn that Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize for his art. Something nobody thought would ever happen. Hip-Hop changes lives - point blank. 

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