Social and cultural contexts
Read this Billboard interview where Common talks about Letter to the Free, political hip hop and contemporary American society. Use the article to answer the following questions on the social, cultural and genre contexts for Letter to the Free
1) What is the 13th Amendment of the American Constitution?
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime
2) What were the Black Codes?
The Black Codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force even after slavery was abolished. This law enforced the restriction of freedom for African Americans and led to the incarceration of (predominantly young) African Americans who had just gained their freedom from slavery and forced them back into following orders and doing labor tasks against their own will
3) Why do people suggest that the legacy of slavery is still a crucial aspect to American culture 150 years after it was abolished by the 13th Amendment?
People suggest that the legacy of slavery is still a crucial aspect of American culture 150 years after it was abolished by the 13th Amendment because it affected such a large amount of African Americans and it cannot be disregarded and ignored by history because racism that originated from slavery still exists in American culture today. There is still an unbelievably high amount of racially motivated crimes against black people happening daily and this is because slavery holds so much dominance in American history and ignorant racists in America still hold the legacy of slavery despite slavery being abolished over 150 years ago
4) Why was Ava DuVernay inspired to make the Netflix documentary 13th?
Ava DuVernay was inspired to make the Netflix documentary 13th because she looked into how multi-billion dollar companies were making huge profits from the forced labour of black people in prison due to the loophole in the 13th Amendment
5) Focusing on genre, what was the most significant time period for the rise in political hip hop?
The most significant time period for the rise in political hip-hop was the late '80s and '90s- Common says that this time period was most reflective of black empowerment, black love, black consciousness and just being aware
6) Common talks about other current artists that have a political or protest element to their music. Who are they? Are there any other hip hop artists that you are aware of that have a strong political element to their work?
Common talks about other current artists that have a political or protest element to their music such as Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar
Media Factsheet #223: Common's Letter to the Free
Read Media Factsheet #223: Common's Letter to the Free and answer the following questions:
1) How is Letter to the Free described on the first page and what album is it from?
Common’s ‘Letter to the Free’ is a political protest song which uses rap and other musical genres such as gospel to communicate how America’s slave history and the various political laws governments have enacted, disproportionately affect black African Americans and people of colour, especially in terms of incarceration rates. 'Letter to the Free' 2016 is from the album Black America Again and is the eleventh studio album by Common and was released on November 4, 2016
2) How does the factsheet link Common to the mythology of the American Dream?
The factsheet links Common to the mythology of the American Dream by communicating racial issues with a positive attitude- he said “I just want people to feel like they can achieve something great in their lives. We all go through rough times, but love is the antidote. You’ve got to dream and just believe in yourself. And if you believe, you will achieve it.” and this is more or less what the American Dream stands for because the American Dream is the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American and this is still prominent in American mythology because it presents the idea of equal opportunity for all Americans
3) How does the factsheet apply Todorov's narrative theory to the song? Does this three-act structure also work for the video?
- EQUILIBRIUM: "Southern leaves, southern trees we hung from Barren souls, heroic songs unsung Forgive them Father they know this knot is undone Tied with the rope that my grandmother died Pride of the pilgrims affect lives of millions Since slave days separating, fathers from children"----> intertextual reference to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ linked to the lynching of innocent African Americans. The knot is a play on words, knot in the rope but also the knot/tie to the slave past. The European settlers (Pilgrims) have affected the lives of African Americans by imposing their supremacy over African Americans. Binary opposition of past and present that creates conflict but will only be resolved through equality of races
- DISEQUILIBRIUM: "Institution ain’t just a building – For America to rise it’s a matter of Black Lives And we gonna free them, so we can free us" ----> various political, economic and social laws implemented by U.S Presidents- especially the ‘war on drugs’ campaigns which have disproportionately affected people of colour. African Americans make up 40% of the prison population- whilst only 14% of the actual population. They work for businesses often for no money and have no rights. Binary opposition between freedom and incarceration
- NEW EQUILIBRIUM: "Freedom (Freedom) Freedom come (Freedom come) Hold on (Hold on) Won’t be long (Won’t be long) Freedom (Freedom)" ----> the struggle is long and slow but freedom is on its way for those African Americans who have hope- there is no resolution yet
4) What does the factsheet suggest regarding the mise-en-scene, lighting and cinematography?
- MISE-EN-SCENE: Letter to the Free was filmed in an empty prison in Queens, New York State. The action takes place in the cells, corridors and gymnasium. The doors of the cells are left open throughout and this creates a sense of irony as we know that if they had people in them, they would be shut. This is one way in which the video connotes the theme of freedom. The stainless-steel toilet and bed show us the harshness and austere nature of prison life and the dehumanising effect it would have on the prisoners
- LIGHTING: The video also intertextualises the aesthetic of film noir Hollywood crime dramas. Light and shadow are used to create the chiaroscuro effect with intense shadows. In the still below you can see how the light and shade make the men look like they are trapped behind bars, this reinforces the oppositional ideas of liberty and incarceration
- CINEMATOGRAPHY: Works to communicate meaning that goes beyond the ideas of incarceration. The opening POV shot tracks us through a steel gate and into the prison taking the viewer with them. The hollowness and echoey nature of the prison appears also to symbolise the ‘hold’ of a slave ship where hundreds of slaves were packed tightly together. This has the very powerful effect of collapsing time and place and taking us back into history to experience it now. It is the absence of slaves and prisoners that makes us think about them all the more
5) The factsheet offers some interesting ideas regarding representation and the positioning of the artist and musicians in the video. Summarise the main points here.
The video carefully positions the artists within the frame. There are no direct gazes at the audience which subverts the usual performance aspect of music videos. The first artist we see has his back to us drumming, oblivious to the audience behind him. This challenges the stereotype of the black artist as simply a performer and could be an example of how the video avoids, what Stuart Hall calls the ‘White Eye.’ Other framing of the musicians has them claustrophobic cells with the doors open which also coincides with a reference to poet Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
anchoring the idea of being trapped and also of the possibility of creative talent being wasted. The female singers are positioned centrally, and they look up with yearning as they sing ‘freedom comes’- invoking a kind of spiritual incantation and this represents the hopefulness that Common is trying to convey with regards to equality
6) How can Paul Gilroy's ideas on diasporic identity and double-consciousness be applied to the Letter to the Free music video?
Paul Gilroy's ideas on diasporic identity can be applied to Letter to the Free because we can see black musicians gaining more power and representation in the industry now and black culture has an influence on cultural output in many different countries. This links to Paul Gilroy’s ideas about the impact the diaspora created by the slave trade had and still is having on Western culture. Gilroy’s ideas also could be used to explore the idea of a black identity, one that has been and is uniquely shaped by the slave history. He calls this double-consciousness which is an internalisation of both African and white identities that have been adopted in order to fit in with society
Close-textual analysis of the music video
Re-watch the music video several times to complete the following tasks in specific detail:
1) How does the Letter to the Free music video use cinematography to create meanings for the audience? (Camera shots and movement)
- Long-shots/establishing shots throughout the music video- no close-ups in order to almost create distance between artist and audience which subverts music video conventions and this may have been done intentionally in order to force the audience to focus on the political message of the song instead of the performance and artist
- Long-shots also allow for the setting to be established successfully
- There is no direct performance or address to the audience and the performers never look at the camera which also subverts typical music video conventions
- Constant camera movement which is very slow which moves through the prison location before moving back out of the prison at the end of the video and this is symbolic of the progression of racism in American history throughout the years
2) What is the significance of the constantly moving camera?
The constant movement of the camera signifies the constant fight that black people have against justice and equality and reflects the perseverance they have to achieve equality
3) Why is the video in black and white?
The video is in black and white because of the historical element that allows the video to be reflective of the time the Common is expressing his concern about. The black and white video also creates a cinéma vérité aesthetic which is a French documentary genre associated with realism and has no heavy emphasis on editing in order to reflect reality in a more realistic way
4) How is mise-en-scene used to construct meaning for the audience - prison setting, costume, props, lighting, actor placement?
- Prison setting- reflective of the subject matter of the song and the documentary which is mass incarceration
- The setting has elements to reinforce the reflection of the subject matter such as prison cells, bars, the writing on the wall that says "no excessive noise" (which may be seen as a way of silencing the voices of black people)
- The video is in black and white and has naturalistic lighting in order to create a cinéma vérité aesthetic which is a French documentary genre associated with realism and has no heavy emphasis on editing in order to reflect reality in a more realistic way
- The placement of the performers puts all of them in different locations in the prison and this is unconventional for music videos but it has been done in order to reflect the consequence of division caused by the 13th Amendment- this could be separation in society between black and white or even division within black communities where friends and family members have been wrongfully incarcerated or been a victim of a racially motivated hate crime
5) What is the significance of the floating black square motif? Discuss your own interpretations alongside Common's explanation of it in the Billboard feature linked above.
I believe that the floating black square motif is reflective of the progression of the black experience in the USA- this is because we are taken on a slow journey where the floating black square is slowly zoomed in on into a close-up and is then shown in a cell to reflect the mass incarceration of black people in the USA and then it goes into the corridor to suggest limited freedom where black people are led to believe they are free but they are still restricted by society due to racism. The floating black square then ends up in a cotton field at the end of the video which presents the idea of freedom because they have no more limits but there is always a constant legacy and history of slavery in the USA that cannot be moved on from or ignored
6) How does the video reference racism, slavery and the oppression of black culture? Make reference to specific shots, scenes or moments in the video.
Racism, slavery and the oppression of black culture has been referenced in this video through the lyric "instead of 'n****' they use the word criminal" and this is highly reflective of the racism that has taken place in America because the 13th Amendment has allowed police officers to incarcerate black people for "crimes" that are not even worth incarceration. The amendment has given police officers the ignorant view that ensures black people are still seen as criminals that are worthy of being locked up instead of real people. The shot of the cotton field at the end of the video is symbolic of the cotton fields that slaves used to work on- using the idea that the floating black square is reflective of the black experience, we can make the link that black people still feel the legacy of slavery because society is not free from racism yet and black people are still not free in the way that they should be
No comments:
Post a Comment