#UNLESHED (Panda Freestyle): Analysis

Artist: Lady Leshurr
Date: 22nd April 2016
Producer: Unknown

Summary:  The genre for this video is grime/rap inspired and is put together by Kaylum. The artist, Lady Leshurr, in this video is talking about her haters and is expressing her anger through the form of rap. She moves around the city at night wearing a black cape and this symbolize danger, however there are different scenes put together.
Lady Leshurr is one of many grime artists who is UK based and a female which makes her stand out.

Type of Video: I think that the music video is conceptual and narrative based, because the artist talks about the negative things that I have been said about her, by numerous amount of people, through lyrics. This makes it narrative based because it shows how an artist may take the negative comments about her music career and not many artists do that. Lady Leshurr takes all the negative comments made about her and lashes out and gives her reply to all of it. However, this video is also conceptual, in a symbolic manner, due to the fact that the video is fast paced and uses a lot of quick cuts, also there is a variety of scenes put together in different areas, where the majority is in low-key lighting, or in a studio, where there is high-key lighting, which highlights different parts of the lyrics and this makes the meanings behind the lyrics more powerful.

Representation of Stars: Lady Leshurr portrays herself to be a strong independent woman who doesn't need to listen to all the criticisms. The clothes she wears highlights that she's a tom-boy but also how most girls dress, apart from the black cape. Grime is mostly associated with men but she allows herself to not conform to stereotypes. From the lyrics, you can see that she is a humble person but would not back down if spoken negatively and from the lyrics you can see her bad side but in one part of the video it shows why she's violating the people and that she is doing music for herself and her fans, not to be criticized.

Technological Aspects: Grime/Rap music is best known for having fast cut music videos that can be seen as aggressive. Kaylum, the person behind the camera, has used a variety of cuts, most of them are fast-paced cuts that has been edited so that it is in time with the beat, for example, in the beginning of the music video, the cuts matches the tempo of the clapping-like sound and this adds to the flow. There is a lot of panning due to the fact that there is a lot of movements the video and sometimes the movement of the camera matches the movement of Lady Leshurr's hand gestures. There are close ups, mid shots, long shots and establishing shots throughout the video; each shot doesn't last for too long and this is good since the song is fast-paced and matches the grime scene. The technological aspects of the video, especially the editing, is one of the things that I like about this video and syncs well with the song. There are zooms ins and fade to blacks as special effects and this adds to her eerie background since she is wearing all black with a cape.

Lip Syncing: Lip syncing is the main element of the song and her performance, this is because she moves a lot throughout the video and there are parts where lip syncing is needed. Since the song requires a lot of movement and the lyrics are fast paced, it would appear that she is rapping by mouth but since the song is clearly played on top, it just means she's really good at lip syncing and knows her lyrics well. Lip syncing is needed in this video for the reason that most of the footage is taking place outside therefore things like wind, cars and city noises would interfere with the track which would make the video look cheap. As most of Lady Leshurr's videos consist a lot of moving around on the streets, there;s a lot of problems that could take place like someone walking in her shot or certain noise which interferes with it and since she is moving around a lot she could get out of breath so lip syncing would be best suited for her video style.

Target Audience: The target audience for her song is for people who enjoy rap and maybe in particular for teenage girls/adults from the age of 15-30. Personally, I like the lyrics and that may be why people may purchase or listen to the song.

Ideas: From this video, I would like to learn Kaylum's camera skills but also I want to incorporate fast-paced cuts into my video, use a variety of shots to keep it interesting and link with the genre I decide to choose, use panning and edit the video so that it matches the beat of the song. I like how she's walking around on the streets whilst the camera is following her in front as she walks towards it since she breaks the fourth wall and stares directly at the camera which shows confidence. Since the song that my group has chosen is about haters and people who may bring you down; it would require a main singer/actor who is confident in what they are doing and able to show attitude just like Lady Leshurr does in her videos.