Analyse of Africa Shox - Leftfield

Afrika Shox - Leftfield
Release Date - 6th September 1999
Genre - Electronica, Progressive House, Drum 'n' Bass, Reggae, and Intelligent Dance.

'Afrika Shox' is a song by Leftfield, the first single released from their album Rhythm and Stealth. The song featured vocals by Afrika Bambaataa, linking in with the name of the song. It was written by Neil Barnes, Paul Daley, Afrika Bambaataa and Nick Rapaccioli, while is produced by Leftfield and Nick Rapaccioli. The song reached 7th in the UK Singles Chart which was the highest position out of all Leftfield singles. The music video was directed by Chris Cunningham.

From an old alleyway comes a black skinned male, maybe a slave but is shown to be like some kind of space alien, who's apperance is skinny and weak making him look very vulnerable. He walks through crowded streets, bewildered and confused. He seems desperate, and no one seems to pay enough attention to assist the man as he looks and feels around for help. As the man bumbs into things, portions of his body start to break off and/or shatter like porcelain. This happens over and over again till he has lost both hands and a foot. Another black skinned man walks over, wearing tribial clothing and is the only other character in the music video that is not of white culture. The man ironically asks if the former needs a hand, giving off the vulnerable state that black people were in America during the slave period, up to the late 1970's and even to the present date. The unitity that they had with each other during these times is shown when the main character is helped by another black skinned male, while no white skinned person helps him when he desparate looked for it. The idea that white people have taken away the lifes of black people, for example taking them away from their families during the slave period, is shown in the music video with white people break-dancing, something which was invented by the black community before white people took it as their own just like everything else that the black people had.

The genre of the music video is mostly shown through the visuals, helping the video to be suitable with the music and with the targetauidence. The establishing shots show a police car driving down a busy street in New York flashing it's lights, this links to the Dance genre side of the music track. Location shots of New York in the USA are also used in the establishing shots. The USA/New York is where the House and Drum 'n' Bass music genres firstly orginated from. The lyrics also link to the music video to suggest the genre of music to the audience. When the main character walks past a wire fence the lyric 'Let's get electrified' is played impling the fence is an electric fence and towards the electronica genre of the song. While also representing New York as dystopic, while also being a futuristic city. The main character then walks in to an underground car park which connates the nature of the roots of the genres of the song, with the genres at the time of the song being made not mainstream with lower interest from

Structured Narrative for Music Video

After research we have decided to use inspiration from another music video for our own. The music video we used was for the song I Found Out by The Pigeon Detectives, using the idea of superheroes and the relationship between men and women. The superhero idea goes with the song title, You Don't Know, with people not knowing who is behind the mask, while also having a hidden meaning of finding out that someone you hold close isn't who you thought and 'not knowing' who they are.

The main narrative for the music video is a young male, who has just spilt up with his girlfriend, running across the city to try and find her and get back together with her. But when he gets there she is with someone else and completely ignores him.

There is the narrative structure for our music video:

• Starts with a close up of a foot tapping to the beat of the intro. The costume of the character is of the ideology that is held of how indie kids look like, with the character wearing skinny jeans, plimsolls and a shirt. The shot is unfocused until music kicks in.
• The camera scrolls up the body of the character, starting at his shoes up to the top of his shirt/neck. This shows the audience what he is wearing, creating a ideology of the character before he has even been seen.
• The character starts to walk after the first lyric "You better run, they're coming for you." Close ups are used mainly, while location is of Chapelfield Gardens.
• The character keeps looking at a picture of him and a female on his phone as he walks through a park. He opens up a contact on his phone, stares at it before going to press the call button and hesitating. Close up of phone and face are used in this shot.
• At the end of the chorus the first time it is played, "I've got the solution, to end this thing." the character undoes shirt to reveal superhero costume. Close up of the buttons of the character's shirt being undone, then removed with the logo of a superhero visible.
• The camera zooms out of the character to see the character in a full superhero costume.
• The character then starts running across to the other side of the city.
• During the last versus, the character catches up to the girl. Medium shot of the character slowing down.
• A close up of the girl smiling, fooling the audience into believing it's a happy ending.
• The girl is now in the arms of another man. Medium shot of both of them.
• Long shot of all the characters with main character's face visible, shocked/upset look on face.
• Medium shot of the main character, he is now wearing the clothes that he wore at the beginning of the video. Zooms/pans to show the new man wearing the superhero costume.
• The new couple then walk off. Leaving the main character on his own as the song fades out.

Background History Of The Indie Pop Genre

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s. While the term 'indie' had been used for some time to describe artists on independent labels (and the labels themselves), the key moment in the naming of the genre was the release of NME's C86 tape in 1986. Musically its key characteristics were jangling guitars, a love of sixties pop and often fey, innocent lyrics. It was also inspired by the DIY scene of punk and there was a thriving fanzine, label and club and gig circuit. Scenes later developed in the United States particularly around labels such as K Records. Genres such as riot grrrl and bands as diverse as Nirvana and Manic Street Preachers have acknowledged its influence. In the mid to late 80s, indie pop was criticized for its tweeness and underachievement, but many now argue that C86 and the birth of the genre was a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK. It continues to have a strong following and inspire musicians, not just in the UK but around the world with new labels, clubs and bands devoted to the sound.

In 2004 the indie pop genre had an resurgence. The UK focused Rough Trade Shops compilation Indiepop Vol 1 effectively documented the history of the sound acknowledging that it pre- and post-dated 1986. London clubs such as How Does it Feel to be Loved? continue to air tracks from the tape. In the mid-2000s, Sweden became a major exporter of indie pop with the such as Labrador Records and the success of indie pop artists from that country, notably Peter Bjorn and John, Shout Out Louds and Jens Lekman. Other indie pop acts which became popular during the late 2000s include British septet Los Campesinos!, Australian group Architecture in Helsinki, Scottish group Camera Obscura, and American groups such as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Drums and Au Revoir Simone.

Explain what Find Your Tribes implies about the concept of identity in today’s world

In today’s society being part in your own social group or ‘tribe’ is much more important to the lives of teenagers than 50 years ago. In which ever modern day school that you go into you will find at least four different groups of social groups, depending on the size of the school. This doesn’t mean that people from one group don’t talk to another or are not friends; socials groups are normally people who are close friends with mainly same beliefs and opinions on matters that concern a 21^st century teenager. This is shown through the website www.findyourtribe.co.uk, yet in a more stereotypical way.

The Find Your Tribe website protrays different social groups and selects people's 'tribes' after they answer selected questions about themselves. With the answers that the user chooses, Find Your Tribe then selects a tribe for the user while also telling them their interests and beliefs. This shows that in today's society that if you like a certain genre of music for example you are stuck in one social group and everyone has a certain ideology about you that goes with the genre music that you like and the views people see of the members of that certain group. Find Your Tribe sums up the ideology's that many people have in today's society, and how these ideology's 'blind' us from what people are really like instead listening to the ideology's of other people.

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend are an 4 piece American band from New York City being formed in 2006. They are in the indie rock/pop genre making them similar to We Can't Dance. Most of the music videos that have been released, to me, very successful making them the perfect example to follow for deciding how to create a music video for We Can't Dance. The official page for the band is http://www.vampireweekend.com/.



This is the video for the first track that was released from Vampire Weekend's second studio album, 'Cousins'. This video is extremely simple, yet very effective, being entertaining for the audience and keeping their attention. The video only took one day to film, and a street in New York was used for the location. Though just two-and-a-half minutes in length, the clips features quite a bit of looping, driving, and outfit and face changing. The video manages to link the music to the visuals. With the song being fast paced and lively the video shows this and keeps up with the demanding nature of the song.



This is the music video for 'A-Punk' that is included on the band's first self-titled studio album, 'Vampire Weekend'. The music video was directed by Garth Jennings, who said to convey the song's "spiky energy," used footage of the band performing as sped up stop-motion figures, simulating winter and underwater scenes during the performance. The sped-up action was effective being used to conotate with the fast beat that is used in the song. The costume that is used is linked to the genre of the band, whilst creating a link with the target audience as the band and thier fans are dressed the same.



This is the music video for 'Oxford Comma' which is from the band's first self-titled studio album, 'Vampire Weekend'. The video was directed by comedian Richard Ayoade. The concept behind the video was for it to be filmed in one long take — similar to the band's video for previous single 'A-Punk' — with unified visual and musical aspects. The video drew heavily on impressions of the works of American filmmaker Wes Anderson.

I like these videos a lot as there is an comic/fun factor to them. This helps to make it more watchable to the audience helping to advertise the song to a wider audience with people wanting to wanting to watch the video which in turn introduces them to the song. All of the videos above are very effective at doing this.

The Lyrics For Our Chosen Track

We Can't Dance - You Don't Know
Run time of track - 3:37 minutes.

You'd better run
cos' their coming for you.
It's about time
you changed all you're views.
You'd better run
cos' their coming for you.
It's about time
you changed all you're views.

You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't know.
You don't, you don't, you don't you don't think.
I've got, I've got, I've got the solution
To end, to end, to end this thing.
You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't know
You don't, you don't, you don't you don't think
I've got, I've got, I've got the solution
To end, to end, to end this thing.

Give me a minute,
to gather my thoughts
and I'll give you an hour,
to gather yours.
Give me a minute,
to gather my thoughts
and I'll give you an hour,
to gather yours.

You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't know.
You don't, you don't, you don't you don't think.
I've got, I've got, I've got the solution
To end, to end, to end this thing.
You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't know.
You don't, you don't, you don't you don't think.
I've got, I've got, I've got the solution
To end, to end, to end this thing.

Got an idea, well good for you.
Bet you any money, that it falls through.
Got an idea, well good for you.
Bet you any money, that it falls through.
Got an idea, well good for you.
Bet you any money, that it falls through.
Got an idea, well good for you.
Bet you any money, that it falls through.

Permission From Both Artists

Below are the two messages that I sent and recieved to and from the artists. These both give our group permission to use their material for the project, while I have also explained to them about who I am and details about why I want to use their material.

Microchip
We Can't Dance

The Selection Of The Artist

When we were told of our project and what we had to do we started to look for an artist that was local. We used websites, like MySpace.com, and word of mouth to find out about local unsigned bands. After a few nights of scanning the artist's material I managed to bring the shortlist down to two. These two artists we were;

We Can't Dance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can)

- http://www.myspace.com/wecantdanceuk/

We Can't Dance are a unsigned indie pop band from Norwich. They are a 4 piece set consisting of band members Harry Dawson, Josie Steward , Tom Joy and Ash Alsop. The band were formed in October 2009 through "Access To Music", a company which has now partnered up with the Norwich Arts Centre College to help get local bands into recording and productions. This has helped them to slowly gain more and more fans with many gigs in Norwich being sold out; the latest one being when they supported Ed Sheeran at The Waterfront in August 2010, while they have an upcoming gig at The B2 where they are headlining to promte their new E.P. The band have also been featured on BBC Radio 1's Introducing Show, whilst also being featured on BBC Radio 6's Introducing Show. We Can't Dance currently have one E.P out called 'Gary Doherty' containing four tracks, with the namesake track making it into the Top 40 indie chart at 40th place. The track that we chose to use is off the 'Gary Doherty' E.P, and is called You Don't Know.

Microchip - http://www.myspace.com/microchiptunes
- http://microchiptunes.weebly.com/index.html

Microchip, aka Tom Joy, is an electronic artist in an one man piece from Norwich. He started writing music when he was 12 years old. Most of his compositions were guitar based and heavily influenced by 70s rock and roll. In aim to branch out Tom learnt to play bass guitar aswell, and played his first gig in September 2005, aged 13. After gaining his first taste of live performing, he was determined to carry on his music, and learnt to do his own recordings at home. After a few months of practicing with his recording equipment and learning keyboard, Tom's music started to take a new, interesting direction, mixing basic keyboard sounds with heavy guitar lines and a simple drum machine instead of a real drummer. Tom found that he worked better with music when he was on his own, and started his own electronic music project in November 2006. Tom's first one-man band was purely electronic, using simple sounds from his computer to make music. He thought that his music sounded like soundtracks from old video games and decided to base all of his music around this retro sound. As time went on the music gradually became less video game like and started entering new territories. In April 2007, Tom and a couple of friends formed a punk band. Having a strong influence of Muse and Enter Shikari, the band decided that they should have some synthesizer and electronics in their music, a job which was handed to Tom. After doing this for a year the band dispanded after realising that they were not very good, going on to do their own things. At this point Tom was fed up of the generic band set up, and not being able to work well with other people to try and create music that he liked playing he began a search of something interesting and new. After reluctantly being invited to a chiptune night at local Norwich venue B2, Tom found what he was looking for, and founded Microchip. Microchip has currently released two EPs, the first being 'Johan Vs Oliver' in February 2009, and the second being 'Midnight Sun' in June 2009.

I messaged both artists on MySpace.com asking for permission to use their material before we asked for feedback from an all round audience who like different genres of music. After discussing with the class after showing them the two tracks that we had chosen to do from both artist, we got feedback from the class saying which one they preferred. The feedback was spilt between the class, showing the different target audiences for both tracks. With me and my other group member being more into the indie music genre we chose to use We Can't Dance over Microchip as we felt that we would be able to represent the band and the music much better, even though we both have an interest into the electronic music genre.