JayZ - "99 Problems"

Textual Analysis; ‘JayZ – 99 Problems’

Relationship between lyrics and visual;

Through out this video you have a lot of references from the images that match the word or phase in which is being sung or rapped about. In this particular video you see a rage of synchronous relationships between the word and image for example, whenever he says ‘bitch’ a picture of a female, comes up varying from a cartoon picture at the start to an actual female.
Another image you see that illustrates what he is saying is when he says ‘fight the some’ and he does boxing moves. Through out the video you see it has little stories with in each other, for example he shows the everyday gangster life from different scenes, like he has a little story about family life- when he shows an image of a wedding photo, another story he has with in this song is the prison life, showing the process and what happens.

Throughout the entire video he basically shows us the 99 problems in which is faced with in the gangster life, things such as being stopped by the police, being jobless and so on. A strong image you see at the end is when he says, “Hit me” and he gets shot several times in the chest. Putting a strong empathies’ on how the gangster life’s, putting a predictable, stereotypical ending to the video.

"I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one" – Images of cartoon women, women in the mirror, ladies dancing come up.

"Enough that you won't illegally search my shit" – view of the car, x-rays the boot.

"I tried to ignore him and talk to the Lord" – you see an image of the crucifix.

"Paparazzi's with they cameras snapping them" – Camera flash’s but its symbolizes their criminal profile picture, not actually meaning their celebrities.

"I got 99 problems but being a bitch ain't one" – Being stopped by the police.

"Hit me" – He gets shot several times. / ending of the story.

Genre Characteristics;

Jay Z – 99 Problems is a stereotypical, hood gangster video and you can tell this by the in which you see, the costumes, the type of scenarios, the portal of females and the representation of other races.

In this video you have the classic gangster look big baggy clothes, the fitted hat or beanie’s, du-rags, sacking trousers and the big oversized coats really putting empathies on the whole looking, giving the view a clear indication of what the video might have in store for them.

Another one of the genre characteristic is the type of scenarios within the video, the getting into trouble with the police, criminal activity giving off the stereotypical view of young black people at that time, then you had hip-hop/street dancing showing the culture in which they all share a positive spin on the negativity.

You then have the females wearing next to nothing, but instead of them looking glamorous, you have the slight twist of negativity towards them as if to say they are not up to his standard.
Also in this video you see the lack of wealth for the fact that you see nothing exspensive like flashy cars or exspensinve jewlry.
the setting of this video also makes it look strange because, its shot in black a white and in the projects, which gives off that sort of poor image, instead of the happy up beat vibzing, colourful videos.

Relationship between music and visual;

through out the video you have jerky but constant movements which matches the beat, rising and falling when it needs to adding extra affects to the whole imagery. In the begining the cuts are insync with the beat, cutting when it needs to and how it needs to inorder for te video to run smoothly and the way it should. When watching the video over once for the first time it is had to catch all the images and scenes because it is too hard to becuase they are very fast, but once you get used to the cuts and the fact it is like that you understand that it matches and narrates the different stories, that are in the video. 

Demands of the record label;

In this video they are not alot of close up or imagery of Jay Z as you might think thus giving off the effeect that he is neing modest or wants to show/illustrate more about the video and its stories then he does of himself, another thing is that you could say him not being seeen 24/7 could be to add for effect showing hes street status making himself a 'kingpin' who are never seen but are always heard but when you do see him, the angle of the shot make him look like more power and somewhat sinister, because you get shots that look up at him from a lower place, or you have close up of him that look mean.

Notions of looking/ voyeurism;

Through out this video the audience get alot of different ways inwhich they see what is happening with in the story/narration, for example we get a chance to become part of the video by looking into the wing mirror, looking through the bars into the prison, watching a video of Jay Z in a video, having x-ray vision to look into the boot, but majority of the time we are looking through his finger as if we are him. Another thing is that we see some shots of women in which seem very sexual but are not as sexual as other videos, but still holding a level of sexiness. 

Intertextual Reference;

 All in all, '99 Problems' reminds me of old action gangster movies, by the way inwhich is is layed out, the black and white theme also by the story lines typical gangster action sequence especially when he gets shot at the end.

 Another thing is that you see Rick Ruben who is of another media platform in the sense that he isnt a rapper or an artist, he is director.