1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
Our products have a relative underrepresentation of ethnic groups due all our group members being Asian. Our editor Dima has a half-Caucasian heritage, but his role involved overseeing filming, which meant that only Asian actors were represented in the music video. Nevertheless, Dima was featured as a podcast guest in one of our social media posts, which adds to our ethnic representation by establishing an multinational production background. Moreover, we utilised our relatively-singular ethnic representation to subvert genre representations according to Stuart Hall’s representation theory. Because hip-hop is a genre traditionally dominated by African-American artists, featuring an all-Asian artist roster is a major deviation from the classic genre-representation that increases the exposure of Asian artists in the broader genre environment, and explores Paul Gilroy’s theme of post-colonialism. In terms of gender, we created both conventional and atypical gender representations: Bobby’s outfit and hairstyle adheres to conventional male characteristics, whereas my long hair is traditionally considered to be a less masculine trait which subverts to the hip-hop artist stereotype of being extremely masculine. These deviations from the traditional hip-hop genre conventions uses Steve Neale’s genre theory to help us create a nuanced representation which corresponds well with our jazz hip-hop genre expectations of being less rigid and aggressive than traditional hip-hop.
Regarding social issues, the first verse focuses on universal themes such as growth, confidence and egotism. These themes are often explored by hip-hop artists in the forms of responding to external and/or internal doubt. The second verse addressees more personal issues such as love, and the deliberate omission of the lover in our music video creates the implication that the love affair has ended. The fact that we are performing in English also creates the subtle undertone of youth identity being impacted by globalisation & foreign influence, which could potentially enact George Gerbner’s cultivation theory under the wider landscape of the global music industry.
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of branding?
I followed Steve Neale’s genre theory as a guideline for creating our branding through both traditional and subversive representations of the hip-hop genre, and designed the branding elements in accordance. Overall, the music video is intended to build a strong branding association with the hip-hop genre, whereas the artist’s identity presented by my outfit, digipak and social media page are elaborately designed to establish that my artist Ar.C is an alternative/indie music producer who has collaborated with hip-hop artist B.H (Bobby) to release a hip-hop single. In terms of mise-en-scene, the gambling scene from verse one, together with the expensive outfits and Ferrari sports car, are all employed to reinforce the hip-hop genre’s direct associations with wealth. We also paid attention to showcasing some key brands, including Air Jordan, Balenciaga and Ferrari, which are linked with fashion and luxury, to further establish the wealth and social status of the artists. Complying to this key genre convention helps us create immediate recognition of the overarching hip-hip direction which we employed in the music video, and fulfils the genre expectation of Asian rappers being rich kids. However, the overall colour gradient presented in the music video is relatively light and features faux-natural lighting, which subverts the traditional colour tone, high contrast and glowing lighting in traditional hip-hop music videos. This offsets the strong mise-en-scene conventions from traditional hip-hop and adjusts the audience’s expectations to suit the flowing, relaxed vibe which we set for the jazz hip-hop subgenre. I also paid particular attention to differentiate the impression of the two artists. The black hoodie & trousers outfit and Bobby’s Air Jordan & Travis Scott collaboration sneakers makes it clear that he is a traditional hip-hop artist, whereas my functional streetwear outfit is much brighter, creating a mood contrast which makes the artists’ separate identities more recognisable for the audience. My bright outfit was also selected to correspond with my ‘alternative, indie music producer’ persona that was initially established due to my genre-subversive appearance of having long hair. My exaggerated and assertive actions on camera also adds to the confident artist personality by demonstrating performance skills.
The extreme close-up shot on the album cover follows hiphop album conventions, but featuring a historical figure instead of the artist on the cover significantly deviates from traditional hip-hop albums, which furthers the genre identity of the artist as alternative/indie. This is also reflected in the surrealist art style and high contrast in colour tones, which clearly indicates that this is not a conventional hip-hop album and contributes to the genre branding of the artist. In addition, I attempted to establish a sense of distance on social media through creating concise, visually-oriented posts on Instagram. On the other hand, the music video is designed to be evocative and engaging, which encourages the audience to focus more on the music itself, its message and how it is performed, as opposed to external factors such as the artist’s social personality. I designed this contrast hoping to create a subtle impression of the artist’s personality and peculiar outlook on music.
3. How do your products engage with the audience?
Our engagement with the target audience begins with our song choice. Jazz hip-hop is a genre hybrid that incorporates conventions from both hip-hop and jazz, which diversifies the range of our primary audiences to include both hip-hop and jazz enthusiasts. Genre hybridity allows us to build a stronger engagement with secondary audiences such as pop enthusiasts who would not normally be attracted by hip-hop releases. In our performance music video, many shots feature me and Bobby rapping while staring into the camera. This creates continuous fourth-wall breaks which shortens the distance between the artist and audience, actively engaging with the audience to retain their attention when consuming our music video. Furthermore, Bobby and I delivered our performances in fashionable outfits in order to create identification in our primary audience by replicating key hip-hop genre conventions. The expensive outfits and sports car presented in the music video also engage with our target ‘aspirer’ audience psychographic through creating ideals for the audience to pursue and imitate.
As the artist, I followed Henry Jenkins’ fandom theory to increase active audience participation. I used the text component in my social media posts to engage with the audience by encouraging them to interact with the artist, comment under his posts and explore his public personality through accessing links to affiliated platforms. On our digipak, we attempted to create a multifaceted aesthetic presentation that would engage with diverse demographics. The overall presentation of the package art includes a grainy, distorted filter and a strong brightness contrast, illustrating a futuristic aesthetic which attracts younger demographics and increases the likelihood of them purchasing or streaming the album. On the other hand, the image on the digipak cover features Julius Caesar whose death by assassination draws implicit intertextual connections with the song ‘Write This Down’ that would specifically attract with older demographics and the more culturally-oriented ‘reformer’ and ‘explorer’ audience psychographics who are more likely to share their findings on social media.
4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
As our group producer, I evaluated our group composition and available resources during the planning phases of our project to identify a suitable song choice and target audience. According to the age of our actors (18-19), I figured that our products would most likely appeal towards a similar age demographic, approximately between 15-25 years of age. Upon researching the music preferences of various age stratas, I decided that hip-hop would allow us to draw the interest of our target demographic through delivering an evocative performance music video. Upon researching key conventions of hip-hop music videos, I realised that it is unsuitable for us to present abundant amounts of explicit language to our target demographic, and also difficult for us to film graphic (e.g. stripper club) content in China. These factors provoked me to research alternative genre options, from which I eventually selected jazz hip-hop, a subgenre of hip-hop that is less associated with explicit content and would therefore be a more appropriate genre choice for a wider target audience demographic.
Research has also informed how we presented artists in the music video. Being unfamiliar with current fashion trends, I conducted research into how I should present myself in order to deliver a convincing and evocative hip-hop performance. Firstly, I found that hip-hip artists tend to have a coherent and fashionable dress-code. Aiming to partially subvert this characteristic, I let Bobby wear a traditionally hip-hop combination of a hoodie and sneakers, while I went for a functional streetwear look with has a lighter visual appearance that subverts the darker tone usually presented by hip-hop artists. This creates alternate genre representations which builds varied expectations that suit our jazz hip-hop subgenre. Secondly, I learned from watching hip-hop music videos that artists tend to use exaggerated facial expressions and hand gestures to emphasise the power of their lyrics, which I successfully delivered in my music video performance. The design of our digipak was also inspired by researching indie bands and hip-hop artists, which led to the incorporation of key conventions such as the close-up shot on the album cover. Our social media page was designed based on my research on how hip-hop artists create hype around their releases by gradually releasing details and snippets of their new album, which I replicated through methods such as releasing a 3*3 teaser of my album cover over a course of 9 days and also posting snippets from my music video to create hype.