Skepta – That’s not me (All-star Remix)

Music Video Analysis

The genre for this music video is ‘Rap’ with a eskibeat featuring in the song. Firstly, when the song starts there is a upbeat, funky beat been played constantly to get the audience to be engaged and hooked to the song. The close up shot of the star constructor walking shows gives the audience the impression of the genre signifiers, such as the characters rapping in a council state, walking through the streets with a negative attitude and the clothing of the characters in a stylistic manner. Some of the main conventions in this music video consist the manner in which the star constructor approaches the camera with a aggression and attitude to rap to the camera. The mid-waist shot of the character rapping is another convention of the genre as it portrays voyeurism. The character rapping towards the camera is trying to engage with the audience by rapping rapidly with hype and a high intensity, whilst the beat increases and becomes crazy and loud.

The style in which the characters are dressed signifies the genre. They are dressed in a ‘hood’ way where their characteristics prevail themselves as they have a bossy attitude and have ‘swagger’ to their style. The 2nd camera view in this music video is really effective as it depicts the Mise en scene and the atmosphere the character has around him. The 1st camera view looks like a video tape whereas the 2nd camera view looks like a ‘behind the scenes’ clip. This is a common narrative expectation in ‘rap’ music videos.

The second camera view shows the next character rapping quickly, this is a common theme in rap that the next character just jumps in immediately and takes over the other character. As you can see, the character is hyped and the diegetic sound is making the audience want to engage with the character as well. The funky, ‘eskibeat’ is making the atmosphere more aggressive and funky.

This is where the star constructor jumps in and raps the chorus with immediate effect. The atmosphere is increasingly buzzing and the second camera view shows the Mise en scene in the council state. In modern day society, the binary opposition for this music video would be ‘youth vs age’ however I believe the binary opposition is ‘propaganda vs. own opinions’. This is because many will get the impression that these artists are bad because of their attitude and ego in rap, how it is based on how the media perceives rap and they have influenced others to believe it is bad due to the environment and culture rap lives in.

This is where the atmosphere starts to build up as the crowd start to get involve and start rapping along with the main character rapping at the moment. This will engage the audience immediately as they feel they would want to get involved as well.

• The hand gestures help the rappers to get their point across as they aggressive point towards the camera. This is a common theme in rap.

• The crowd is a common theme in rap as it creates a huge atmosphere and reputation for the rapper himself.

• The rappers are based on different ethnicities – both black and white skin colours so there is no stereotyping in rap

• The star constructor is the main focus of this music video as he brings in his rappers to raise awareness of the music video and bring attention to his song.