Textual Analysis of Music Video 2

The music video I am analysing is “Make It Home” by August Alsina directed by Payne Lindsey. The genre of the music is RnB/Soul. You can tell that the music is RnB because it is a song about love and it is also a slow and calm song.

The lyrics are amplified by the video. In the video you see August and his friend getting chased by the police, jumping over fences and you hear him singing saying “If I don’t make it home tonight”. This tells us that he might not get away from the police and may not make it home. He is also seen writing a letter to his loved ones and singing saying “Tell my mother that I love her, take some flowers to my brother” which tells us he could be going away for a long time. This tell us that the lyrics are amplified by the visuals.

The video and the music are linked because whenever the visuals cuts to the beat. You see this throughout the video whenever the kicks come in hard the visuals always change to different scenes of him getting chased. There is a solo instrumental bit at the beginning when the song comes on and because the song is quite sad and slow the visuals match with the instrumental. In the visuals you see that August has his hands on his head because he got caught, the police are pointing guns at him and the instrumental is playing in the background so the instrumental is amplified by the visuals. The pace throughout the video is the same. The pace does not change.

The artist in the video is being represented as a criminal. In the video he is getting chased by police in the neighbourhood and gets caught in the end. You can see how he is being represented as a criminal in his clothing as well because he is wearing a black hoodie, black beanie hat, black trousers and black shoes which is a criminal image. The clothing he wears is similar in other videos. He wears a lot of black in other videos and he is seen wearing black in this video as well. His style of clothing is similar in other videos.

This video is half narrative and half concept. The concept being about August possibly going to jail because of his criminal activities and the narrative is August and his friend getting chased by the police and him getting caught.

To conclude, the music video follows many of the conventions of a Rap/Hip-Hop video but August Alsina is a RnB artist so he has developed the conventions of an RnB music video.  

August Alsina ft Young Jeezy- Make It Home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQFw3K0uNAA