Make Her Say (feat. Kanye West & Common) - Kid Cudi.
Scott Mescudi, or most commonly know as his stage name Kid Cudi, released his first mix tape in 2008 which was titled “A Kid Named Cudi”, when he was 24 years old, this caught the attention of Kanye West, who is a very successful and respected hip-hop artist, this then led to Kanye West singing Kid Cudi to his music label, GOOD Music. In the song “Make Her Say”, he collaborates with Kanye West and Common, who is also attached to the GOOD Music label. The song was originally titled “I Poke Her Face” but was then later changed to “Make Her Say” to make it suitable to play on the radio. The song was released on iTunes on the 9th of July, and it was the second of three singles he released from his debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day, which was released in November of that year. The video was directed by Nez Khammal and it premiered on July 20, 2009. The music video stars all three of the artists, but despite that fact they never attended a film shoot together, with Kid Cudi and Common filming there parts in New York, whilst Kanye West filmed his section in Los Angeles. It was also planned that Lady Gaga would make an appearance in the music video, as the song had a vocal loop from her song “Poker Face”, but she was too busy to make an appearance in the music video. The song falls into the genre of alternative hip-hop which is quite a niche genre of music, meaning that there are very few notable genre characteristics in the music video.
The music video is a performance based video with a little bit of narrative in there too, the video is split into three different sections, a section for each artist, and in there section the artist is present throughout. The small pieces of a narrative are seen in Kid Cudi’s and Common’s sections, the narrative is that they are dating or seeing a girl who is quite moody and upset, in Kid Cudi’s part for example he is driving in a convertible on a nice day, and the girl next to him seems moody and as if she is sulking. In Common’s part it is the same, but he is in a bedroom sitting at the front of the bed whilst a girl sits at the back again sulking and moody. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in the music video, that is the fact that all three artists same the same line, but slightly different each time, Kid Cudi says: “she said she can have whatever she likes, but she cant bring her friend”, Kanye West says: “…. she said she gonna’ bring her friend”, and Common says: “…. but you gotta’ bring your friend” this is reflected in the mood of the artist in the video, with Kanye West and Kid Cudi seeming quite happy, but Common doesn’t look so happy. Also in these lines whenever they refer to the girl, it always shows a shot of here not looking so happy. This is because the response of the women is seen as how much they like the man, in this case the artists.
The music video is a very creative one, and it keeps the eyes busy throughout, with lots of shots and with the screen being spilt into two showing different shots and changing a different times. This not only keeps the eyes looking and interested it also creates the illusion that the three artists where filmed at the same locations even though they were not. The video has minimal aesthetics, with scenes taking place in big empty open spaces. The first scene is Kid Cudi on a rooftop with helium balloons tied to the ground which gives a nice effect and looks colorful.
There are a few examples of relationships between the visuals and the music, one of which I have already mentioned which is about the mode of the women in the video and the lyrics. Another example is when there is the sound of the record scratches, there is a shot of the women on a DJ table scratching a record, incidentally the DJ table she is using is the first use of Activision’s new game ‘DJ Hero’. Throughout the video, the change of shots is matched to the key beats in the song, this is quite effective as the two sections of the screen never cut at the same time, and there is movement in the other half. This is also put with several match on action shots as you see Kid Cudi walking through the room from two different positions.
I think that Nez Khammal, who directed the video has done a great job with the editing as it is very creative and simple but also very effective. This is one of the few notable characteristics of alternative hip-hop, the fact that the video’s are generally creative and a bit different from the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment