Nicki Minaj- ‘Your Love’

Artist: Nicki Minaj

Song: ‘Your Love’

Released: June 1, 2010

Genre: Hip hop, R&B

What is music video for?

Performance

Nearly every music video that is realised today has a performance scene; it’s usually a scene that is performed directly to the audience by the lead singer(s). In this music video inparticular ‘Nicki Minaj’ is in shots where she is performing to the camera and keeping direct eye contact.

Issues of representation: Gender & Narrative

This music video has a narrative that explores and acts out the lyrics, ‘Imma Die Hard like Bruce Willis’ Nicki is speaking metaphorically and revering to Bruce Willis the actor and his film ‘Die Hard’. However the narrative of the video shows that she is fighting for her love who is a ‘Samurai’ and her teacher. The other woman in the shot with her is also a student like herself, but is jealous of the relationship between Nick and the teacher. In music video we explore jealously which is usually associated with females and is a negative representation. The stereotypical reason for females to be jealous is usually due to rivalry over males, similar to this music video. ‘When I was a Geisha he was

a Samurai’, Nicki in the lyric is revering to herself as a Geisha which is a negative representation of

gender because Geishas were seen as prostitutes by the Japanese Samurais.

Throughout the video we learn that both Nick and the girl are students in a ‘Samurai’ school and both are attracted to the teacher but the teacher is fonder to Nicki (the artist), this is where the rivalry begins. They then have a sword fight in this case nicki is stabbed which makes us feel more sympathetic towards her. This challenges codes and conventions of binary opposites, evil triumphs over good and Nicki is left to die when her ‘love’ the teacher finds her and stays till she dies. ‘Your Love’ is the name of this music video and the conventions of it follows the Andrew Godwin’s ‘illustrate’ which is a term used to describe when a music video is based on the lyrics and shows some of the verbal lyrics as images.

Audience & Media Language

The way Nicki is dressed would be associated with how a female known as a ‘Geisha’ would have dressed. Geishas were also known as prostitutes for the ‘Samurai’s’ pleasure. In all three shots Nicki is wearing a similar design of costumes; this is what women in the Japanese culture would wear. The chop sticks in her hair, the heels, belt around her waist and the patterns on the clothing all construct the Japanese culture.

The use of swords is an association and a representation of a ‘Samurai’ which is a culture of the Japanese. The definition of the word is ‘the way of the sword’. These are the trainings ‘Samurais’ go through in order to graduate.

The use of mese-en-scene such as the costume and props used Nicki Minaj is trying to recreate the Japanese theme of ‘love’ and in using this to appeal to her target audience.

Star Image:

Nicki Minaj is the star image in this music video to her new album ‘Pink Friday’. She has created an image and persona that girls and women inspire to be like. In most of her music videos she puts her assets and body parts on display e.g. breasts and hips. This follows the conventions of voyeurism as Freud argued. He said that gender pleasure is looking or gazing to gain sexual pleasure. This is why female stars look a certain way in order to engage with their target audience. Nicki in her persona is appealing and also showing intimacy to both the female audience (sense of style) but also to the male audience (the male gaze). This relationship is also known as the one way relationship between the audience and star image, whereas Nicki is a constructed media representation of the ‘perfect woman’ her audience inspire to be her or with her. Hair and makeup are always done in the same style but different colours which shows her individual.

Check It Out- Nicki ft will-i-am

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Massive Attack- Nick ft Sean Garrett