Research into Music Video Industry

Textual Analysis
'Sonnenbank Flavour' - Bushido

In this textual analysis of the music video to the song ‘Sonnenbank Flavour’ by the Arabic/German rapper ‘Bushido’, I will discuss how the constituent features (Mise-en-scene, Camerawork and editing) of the video help to represent Bushido’s image as a rapper.

Mise-en-scene

The song is basically a listing of words that describe the rapper’s life and his environment. This is almost just factually accompanied by images of these listed words to enhance their meaning which is in a sense the original purpose of a music video: to visualise the song.

First of all, it takes place in a white location which looks like it is in the middle of nowhere where there is nothing but a sunbed. This introduces immediately the main topic of the song, or at least hints on the title: Sonnenbank (= sunbed). The fact that it gets cleaned by the second featured rapper suggests he’s not as important as Bushido and in a lower status position which is then revoked by him getting attention from the sexy blonde girl signifying he is indeed popular and a player. But as it is a music video and doesn’t imply the common film conventions, it is very likely that just the use of humour is made and Eko Fresh ‘takes the piss’ with his cleaning as this is the opposite of his usual image.

When the music kicks in Bushido is established in the white empty space everything focusing on him. As the rap starts in which he lists the things that are closely related to his life, almost every word is visualised by a motion picture. For example, we see the flags of his country, a group of people representing his big family again referring to his nationality as it is said that muslim families have lots of relatives. His wealth is among other things shown by the big black expensive looking car (BMW?) and him wearing a pretentious watch. Close reference to his success in the music industry is made by showing gold record awards, music TV channels and his record label title, but also telling us about his amazing party life as a famous rapper with images of a popping Moet champagne bottle and also its rough aftermath by a Aspirin pain killer pill. All these elements are combined and alternately seen with sexy women dancing and moving on the sunbeds. All in all this creates and supports Bushido’s obvious gangster rapper image as he’s rich, famous, successful, likes partying hard and a lot but in an ostentatious way, has lots of women, but apparently still stays the same and claims that his Arabic origins but also his country Germany and his family and friends are very important to him and mentions that no one should try to be against him shown by weapons such as a baseball bat which also supports his Gangster Rapper image and that he kind of knows how it is ‘out there on the streets of Berlin’ so his audience/fans can still identify with him.

The aspect of sunbeds and  the dancing women on them are almost a little bit abstract and don’t really convey meaning, although it could be seen as a hint on nudity reinforcing the sexiness of the dancers around Bushido, but also the artificiality of fame and and celebrity.

Camerawork

In contrast to the rest of the clip, the beginning is quite clearly kept in terms of shot sizes and angles. The clip starts with a close-up on the one rapper’s hand cleaning the sunbed. This immediately gives a humorous aspect to the music video which we like as an audience because we would never see our gangster rapper Eko Fresh cleaning something infront of our eyes. Then a cut-in on the backside of a girl only dressed in a bikini represents the stereotypical player image of a rapper. As the music kicks in, an establishing shot of Bushido gives all the attention on him and framing him standing infront of the expensive care tells us the close relationship between him and the car to convey his wealth. Throughout the whole video, close-ups on the things he lists in his rap accompany and enhance their meanings mixed with more cut-ins on feminine body parts of the dancers and wide shots and close-ups on him reinforce his player image and the fact that he has everything in his life, from his tough backround, family and friends, wealth and success and being attractive to women. This is emphasized by the ‘male gaze’ when tilting up and down the almost naked body of one dancer.

The bird’s eye angle down on him surrounded by the dancers again shows him in the centre of attention and popularity. Also, since it is a music video this high angle is a utile angle to film the choreography taking place on the sunbeds, as this allows to show the girls’ faces and gives a little peak into their decolltés which is showing skin to an extent that is reasonable but could easily go too far, which could be referred back to the rappers’ image as the topics the rap about are always desputable whether they are appropriate or x-rated.

Editing

Certainly, the whole clip is quick paced through the high amount of cuts and intercutting from prop to dancer to rapper etc. to create an artificial environement around Bushido that involves all the elements significant for him. We could therefore even say that this achieves to recreate his life by adding all the things he raps about to him in the white wide empty space he’s situated in. Match on action cuts are used to show and vary the dancers’ choreograhy. Quick cuts between CU’s on him and wide shots of the girls dancing could be seen as eye-line matches which suggest how he looks and the girls and how they dance for him.

Small use of CGI is made for example when his family or his gang is shown there’s a short moment when the picture turns into a blueish color like a X-Ray photo – this could signify that for Bushido his family/gang is what’s inside him and the close relationship he has to them.

To finish off, we see a fading wide shot of Bushido that cuts back to the starting CU image of Eko Fresh filmed through the … of the sunbed which looks like a window. This suggests a completely new idea: Everything we saw was watched by an outside individual hinting on the sleeplessness of fame and that Bushido’s whole life can be and is observed by strangers.

All in all, even though this music video uses a different idea of editing and camerawork and looks very different to common rap videos, the star image of the artist is still the sterotypical gangster/player from the steets reputation who made it to someone rich and succesful.