Hip Hop Music Video Analysis

The video that I chose for the Hip Hop video analysis is Make It Nasty by Tyga. This video is extremely explicit when compared to other music videos as it even made me sign into my YoutTube account due to explicit content. This video is about nothing but living a rich and lavish lifestyle surrounded by half naked women in luxury estates. This video shows many women half-naked and dancing around artist Tyga, popping champagne bottles, pouring it all over their bodies and exposing their breasts while sexually touching each other. The song has lyrics like yeah bitch make it nasty, tongue down the throat while the other bitch gaggin,' got a China bitch, straight from Beijing, pussy so tight, all she do is scream, and I like when my bitches don't wear no clothes,. After watching this hip hop video and listening to the lyrics sang in this track, it isn't difficult to understand the messages and lack of respect that are being communicated about woman.

According to the documentary shown in the lecture cast Hip Hop Pt. 2, in order to be liked in the Hip Hop community you must be strong/tough, you gotta to have all the girls, you gotta have money, you gotta be a player or a pimp, you gotta be in control and dominate other men and women, otherwise people may see you as soft or weak and call you a pussy or a chump or a faggot, and nobody wants to be any of those things, so everyone stays inside that box, (Hip Hop Lecture Cast Pt. 2). If artists want to make it in the Hip Hop community, they must follow and try to portray s specific lifestyle that fans associate that type of music with. When an artist fails to prove to the community that he/she isn't about that life, it makes it increasingly difficult to make it big and have a large fanbase.

Suge Knight once said that Hip Hop is a man's game, (Hip Hop Lecture Cast Pt. 2). A huge objective in the Hip Hop scene, especially for a male rapper, is to represent himself as more masculine than anyone else. To successfully secure his masculinity to the public, he must always flaunt his money and have plenty of attractive women around him to show that he is indeed the MAC or a wealthy pimp. I think black men have internalized the messages that this culture perpetuates, which is that women are primarily sex objects, and people to be fucked, (Dr. Beverly Guy Sheftall, Spellman College: Hip Hop Lecture Cast Pt. 2). A man in the documentary of the part 2 lecture cast also said that rap artists have taken views of women of color as not radically different from views of 19th century white slave holders. (Hip Hop Lecture Cast Pt. 2)

Although the rappers and hip hop artists are the ones who are pushing these messages through their lyrics and music videos, they may not agree with those specific messages. For those young rappers the most important thing for them is to get that record deal, and then they hear from the record companies that there are only certain levels of blackness that they're gonna let flow through this space, (Hip Hop Lecture Cast Pt. 2). Even though rap artists don't agree with the messages they are portraying in their music, they must follow the orders they are given in order to continue in their fame and fortune. A great example of this is Multi-Platinum Rap Artist, Nelly who is also a successful businessman that loves to give back to the community with he help of his two non-profit organizations that help with literacy and locating bone marrow donors for Leukemia patients. When Nelly wanted to attend Spellman College for a bone marrow drive, the students refused to have him attend due to his music video for song Tip Drill, and the way it portrayed women.

Finding out how these rap/hip hop artists only stand by these songs created by record labels because it's the only way they can keep their contracts was very big news to me and it has opened my eyes to the way the record labels work in the shadows of their artists.

Cite this page