The black eyed peas

The Black Eyed Peas – Where is the Love? Video analysis

For my A2 media, I am required to analyse three music videos. I have chosen to analyse the Black Eyed Peas lead single for their third album ‘Where is the Love?’ They are an American hip-hop group and at the time of the music video their genre came under alternative hip-hop.

This music video is a narrative about telling everyone the problems in the world. The video starts with a close up of a crumpled piece of paper with a red question mark. You see the image of the question mark at various stages, throughout the video. This question mark is a symbol of asking the world where the love really is. In the video it is like they are starting a revolution. Trying to spread a message, of the problems to find peace and love, with different cultures, through putting up posters, and going through the streets getting out the message on a loud speaker.

Throughout the video there are messages on walls, like this one on the left and another ‘We are NOT A minority’. This is trying to spread the message that whatever race we are, we are all the same and shouldn’t have love for just your own race, but for ever

race.

There are close up shots of childrens faces. Close up shots are used so that you can see the sad expressions on their faces trying to show that the hate in the world is affecting the children today.

After the numerous shots of the question mark posters, it goes to a medium two shot of Will.I.Am and Taboo, in the back of a van with sound equipment, singing into the microphone, which is coming out of the loud speaker on the roof of the van. They are trying to get their views to as many people as possible, and

doing it in a way that people can’t help but take notice of it. There is also a close up of Will.i.am’s face while in the van, which is used to show how passionate he is abou the lyrics and the messagehe is singing.

There is a close up shot of someone getting a tattoo of the symbol they have been putting around on the posters of the question mark. This is implying that people do want peace and love, as there are other shots of people in the video where they have a question mark on their arm. Props of everyday items are used with the question mark symbole, showing the spread of the message because many people will use these items throughout the day, e.g. the bank note.

The location of the video is in an urban city/town. This indicates that the urban areas is the places where there is the biggest problems of race and culture conflict.

There is a close up shot of apl.de.ap (band member) that is from a high angle. He has just been caught by the police, who are white. He is being looked down on by the white policeman, this shows him being superior to him, but it could be trying to suggest that people think he is superior to him, not just because he is a policeman but because he is white, and that this is one of the problems we face in the world.

Towards the end of the video, there is a long shot of many people looking up to the sky with the lyrics saying, ‘We only got (One world, one world)’. I believe this has a semantic meaning, the one world is connoting that we are all one, that although we are from different countries and races, we are all from the same place.

The editing throughout the video is at a fairly fast tempo. It goes well with the music, because the cuts are on the beats in the music. The fairly fast editing could connote, that the message needs to be spread quickly and something needs to change rapidly.

In the video they use dyer celebrity theory. Representing the members of ‘The Black Eyed Peas’ as the leaders of a revolution, eventhough in real life they are not part of a revolution. By using celebrities it gets the message they are trying to spread across better because people take more notice when it is celebrities, than if they used an unknown group of people as the revolution leaders.