Textual Analysis

Artist : The Game Ft Kanye West

Song : Wouldn't Get Far

Record Label : Interscope Records

The muci video i will be analysing is "Wouldn't Get Far" by The Game Ft Kanye West, which was released in January the 5th 2007. This song was composed by American rappers Kanye West and The game and was produced by Kanye West. "Wouldn't get far is" The games third single from his second album Doctor's Advocate it rached number 11 in the US Rap charts.The song is talking about famous actreses and models who made it big though music videos or by going out with rappers. In the song The Game talks about models such as Karrine Steffans, Vida Guerra, Meagan Good, Gabrielle Union, Hoopz, Lil' Kim, Charli Baltimore, Toccara Jones, and Melyssa Ford. I think the music video is a bit of performance as well as narrrative; this is becasue he perfroms the song in the vdeo and when hes off set the camera is still rolling and you can the story about the video girls and how they really become famous.

The music video to The Game's "Wouldn't Get Far" has many sterotypical conventions of a Rap/Hip - Hop genre mucsic video, even though we wouldnt expect a song like this to be made by a rapper as they usaully don't make songs exposing female celebrities. However an example of a sterotype we would expect to see in a rap video is very expensive jewellery, which we see in the begining of the video when The Game walks out of his wardrobe for the secon time. We also see his expensive clothing such as his Louis Vuitton belt. In adition to this we also see other typical conventions of the rapper as he has tatto's on his fae which we usually associate with gang culture. The clothing along with the jewellery all connote the wealth of the rapper.

Another sterotype we expect to see in a rap video is girls and lots of them. As The Game walks out of his wardrobe he walks pass a large amount of girls who are dressed provocativly, this is done through the mise en scene. This would suggest that they are sex objects as they walk around half naked on the set of a music video s well as the video its self. This sterotype is reinforced by the chorus :
{"You wouldn't get far"} Fuckin them rap stars
You know who you are, put your hands up ladies
{"You wouldn't get far"} If you kept your legs closed
{"It would be best to wait your turn"} But you know
{"You wouldn't get far"} Fuckin them rap stars
You know who you are, I wrote this song for you
{"For you baby, I'd find you"} For you
And you, for alla y'all

This suggest that women are just sex objects and enforces the sterotype that rappers don't treat women with respect and feminist would also say this is a typical convention you would expect to see in a music video today.

The Game is signed to interscope records which has many famous RnB and Hip - Hop artist such as Pharrell Williams, Soulja Boy, Pussycat Dolls and Lady GaGa to name few. This shows how big the record label is as the label has many successful artist from differnt genre's. The fact that Interscope is one of the biggest music labels in the world allowed the video to be distributed world wide on a successful level. The song appeared on famous music channels around the world such as Mtv and was played on radios in America throughout Europe.In addition to this the music video was distribued through the internet on sites such as Youtube and was also distributed and consumed through I tunes.