essay

this essay will be comparing the meanings and messages being conveyed in the two music videos of Afrika Shox including Afrika Bambataa and the other music video is of Like A Prayer, by Madonna. Afrika Shox is a music video set in New York city, the appearance in the video of Afrika Bambataa is important as the word Bambataa means glorious leader in Zulu which strongly links to his role in the video. In the other video, we see Madonna playing a good samaritan and a witness, Madonna is a worldwide known figure and is a role model to many people. She is so powerful in the eyes of many because of her many accomplishments, and in forbes magazine she was likened to the best businesswoman in the 20th century.

Both music videos convey a similar but distant message from eachother. Both videos try to raise a large and very present point which is racism. In Both music videos, there are several examples of racism, in the first video of Afrika Shox, the racism is towards a Blackman who is dressed in poor clothes and the white community is breaking him to pieces. A different message is conveyed in Like a Prayer, by Madonna, when the Blackman is captured and made to be weaker just because of his race.

Although these two examples of discrimination are different, they are still internally linked by the problem that goes with racism.

The music Video Afrika Shox has many micro elements that fall into the category of mise-en-scene. The actual music video is set in NewYork City. It starts off in a dark alley in the side streets of the city. In this dark miserable alley, we first meet the black man who acts as though the area is a completely new territory to him. The man is dressed in scraggy clothes that look like they have been worn for a long time as they are ripped all over. Through the mans eyes we guess that he has been in the dark alleys or in darkness somewhere for quite some time, as in hiseyes, the cataraxes have gone white which is a side affect of being in the dark without the light on your eyes for a long time. As he leaves the alley, we see him walk along the streets in a busy new York creating a lot of disturbance as he is bumping into lots of the general public and grabbing onto them as though he is making a plea for help. He then goes to a square in the middle of a business district