Dizzee Rascal - 'Dream' music video analysis

Dizzee Rascal - 'Dream' music video analysis

Narrative

The narrative of the song is about Dizzee Rascal telling this audience that he had a dream and managed to achieve it. The overall tone of this song is inspirational and Dizzee wants to get his message across that you need to work hard and be committed to achieve your dreams. The music video is set in a elderly woman's living room as she is playing a piano. The actual setting of the living room is fairly simple in colour by the wallpaper being a simple cream colour and the curtain by the window being a brown colour. The small snippet of the living room already shows that it is set in a stereo-typically ideal British woman's living room and from listeners expecting a darker tone and setting due to Dizzee Rascal being a grime rapper and there are dark undertones of the genre, however the music video and the beat is quite upbeat and colourful making this song by Dizzee an unexpected surprise. 

Camera and lighting

The lighting seems natural but at the same time the lighting is brighter than usual for a video expected from Dizzee. There are various camera angles ranging from close-ups to mostly wide shots. There are close-ups when trying to show the facial expressions of Dizzee, the dolls or the woman and this is done to make the audience focus on how they react to certain things as the music video progresses. Lighting does change throughout the video as for example when there is a nightclub scene, there is a disco ball and dimmed lights that follow . The lighting seems to not play any major part aside from constructing scenes.

Reference to music style

The song itself is quite upbeat despite Dizzee Rascal being a grime rapper, where grime as a music genre is quite popular in the UK and is known for its gritty lyrics and tone. Grime music lyrics usually tackle problems and obstacles that the artist believes that people face in life, especially in society and decides to put their view on it for listeners to be able to relate to this. This song however, has an upbeat and a 'pop' type beat which is seen as quite strange by the audience and his fans familiar to his music. Dizzee Rascal samples lines from another song called 'Happy Talk' which was released in 1982 and the lines are used for the hook of 'Dream'. This hook plays in contrast to Dizzee's rapping and is not sung by him but by the woman playing the piano. It is meant to compliment the video's visuals of being colourful and vivid. This gives the song a positive and bright tone, making the song stand out even in the grime genre. It almost gives off the impression that Dizzee wants pop music fans to start listening to his music as he blends the two genres for this song.

Representation

The setting of the living room consists of basic and striped wallpaper, floral curtains and a grand piano. This represents a stereo-typically middle-class environment that is meant to contrast with the inner-city environment and urban areas which is represented through the props such as the off-licence shop and graffiti being everywhere. This urban setting of young people tending to revolve around here a lot contrasts with the woman presumably living in the suburban, countryside area as that is where elderly, retired women tend to live to get peace and quiet. However this peace and quiet is disturbed by Dizzee and the other puppets as they seem to be messing around and the woman puts on a 'shocked' facial expression and it seems as if she is irritated by their presence. This is seen again when the helicopter flies past her and she seems quite disgusted and this represents the stereotypical British woman who does not like her personal space to be interfered with and is not used to experiencing anti-social behaviour that Dizzee and the group of young people are doing. Dizzee also wears a red tracksuit and seems to represent the typical defiant young person in society who doesn't like to take orders from elders by saying 'reckless with no shame' showing a quite negative representation of him however as he talks about working hard to achieve his 'dreams', it may give a quite positive look on him which is what the entire song and video is about. 

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