Dream music video - Dizzee Rascal

The narrative:

his rise to success - his personal journey - autobiographical - inspiring the next generation, directly addressing them. upbeat lyrics.

The Genre:

Pop, grime & hiphop 

The Setting:

Playful at first, then it shifts onto an old woman's piano and then on the piano it's got a grime type of vibe. Iconography is more realistic (off license, police) but the props make us change how we feel about it - seems unreal. Not too gritty - just a fantasy. 

Props:

playful toy colours, light pink, baby blue - yellow suggesting it's going to be upbeat and positive. 

Lighting:

brightly lit - positive vibes 

The puppets could represent mockery on grime

the puppets and the fact they're small - idealogical implication of the message of the song and video - loving in the old lady's world. Her house. Ethnicity? Dizzee's world is more run by white people and the puppets are controlled by her.

white upper class is more dominate and controlling. the puppets are controlled by someone bigger. Lower class? 

Dizzee doesn't have strings - the one person who doesn't have strings - maybe it represents him leaving the puppet world. breaking free. He's let out from the box by the woman, showing he doesn't have control over himself like that. When he finishes the song, he returns back to his box. Certain boundaries. Metaphor for power and control. no matter how successful black people are, they'll never has as much power as white people.

the upbeat song clashes with the setting & lyrics.

the woman's on edge the video - doesn't approve of Dizzee. 

the black people are involved in petty crime and the woman is involving the police - white cops. recoils when the police do arrive - disapproves of both sides. Scottish/Irish drunk (ginger, drinker, tramp stereotype) the woman recoils again but she's not getting involved considering that this is her world. doesn't take control. 

Muffin the Mule(children's show) woman is being referred to - direct reference. - less threatening. the song itself is a reference to happy talk by Captain Sensible, similar riff and melody. Grime artist is happy to take riffs from the 80's music. Captain Sensible was originally in a punk band. similar toy dizzee coming out of Grime. "You're too sensible" when Dizzee comes out of the box is a direct reference to this artist.

the video just changes the whole idea of the song. its very contrasting - a darker meaning, darker dream. 

a young black urban man with a pram is not stereotypical - unusual

Language (lyrics)

"I'm from the LDN and there's no forgetting that" - he knows his roots despite being a black man working

Analysis:

Throughout the music video, we can gather that the narrative is based on Dizzee's personal journey through growing up and as we can see from literal places that he talks about, we can infer that it's very autobiographical. Furthermore, we can interpret that he is trying to be an inspirational role model to the younger generation by directly addressing them, saying "to all you youngsters". 

I feel as though the video completely changes the whole idea of the song as the video connotates some deeper meanings to it. for example, the use of the puppets and the fact that they're all so small in comparison to the old lady's home gives that ideological implication of living in the woman's house. This also, implies that Dizzee's world is run predominately by white people and the puppets are all controlled by her - signifying that they're just living in her world. We notice that Dizzee is the only small person without strings  which could possibly represent him being seperate from the puppet/fake world. However, this doesn't mean that he's got control of himself as at the start of the music video, he is being let out of the jack-in-the-box by the older woman which indicates that he doesn't have control over himself and when the song ends, he returns to the box which again, represents he's got certain boundaries to follow which could be a physical metaphor for power and control - further implying that no matter how successful black people are, they'll never have as much power or dominance as the white people.

we can also see how apprehensive this woman is throughout the video and how on edge she is which causes us to assume that she doesn't like Dizzee and although there's crime and drunkards in the video and her face shows she doesn't really approve, she's chosen to not get involved despite it being her world where she can control what happens.

In the video, Dizzee's aim was to try and show people that not all stereotypes are true as there's a black man pushing around a pram which would be considered as unusual as it's rarely seen.

Dizzee was inspired by 80's artist Captain Sensible as he took riffs from the music and he even makes a direct reference to this artist as he says "You're too sensible" when coming out of the box.