This video builds a narrative that leads up to a scene that reveals a
contradiction. The video details an adolescent skipping school with his
friend, doing illegal activities such as breaking in to property and
smoking and when he goes home
he finds his mother cheating on his father with J.Cole. Throughout the
song Cole is talking about him having to turn down a woman at the club
or party because he is loyal to his woman at home, and that he 'can't be
what the woman' wants.
Amplifying
The video is entirely narrative based and contains no lip syncing of the lyrics.
Illustrating:
There is only one point in this video that illustrates the lyrics, and
it doesn't illustrate them in a clear way. During the hook of the song,
Cole repeats the line "She knows, she knows" which on first listen you
would assume that he means his woman knows he is being unfaithful to
her. However it is the opposite, with Cole talking about a woman knowing
that he has a girl at home that he has to be loyal to. Linking to the
video, there is a mid shot of the boy's mother and Cole getting
undressed implying that she is being unfaithful to her husband, which
goes against these lyrics.
Cutting To Music:
The video is mostly cut to music, which is aided by the fact that the
song has a strong constant beat. An effective moment that cutting is use
in the video is when Kyle catches his mum cheating. When he realises,
the music cuts out and you get diegetic sound of his mother saying his
name. There is a moment of suspense with no music, and then the music
comes back in cut to a shot of him running out of his house, followed by
a tracking shot of him and his friend running down the street. I think
it's a very effective moment as the energy of the music matches the mood
of the moment very well.
Genre:
The genre of this video is purely narrative. It tells a story of a young
man skipping school with his friend and finding out that his mother is
cheating on his father. The video has a high production value, being
shot well, edited well and is colour graded to make it look more like an
excerpt from a movie than a music video.
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