Analysis of a music video: Leftfield – Africa Shox (1999)

The video I shall be analysing for this task will be Leftfield’s 1999 electronica, dub, reggae song, Africa Shox. From the very first scene, you can see that they have used a nurban, inner city setting. Early on in the video, a police car is seen driving past on duty, with it’s flashing lights suggesting thegenre. These bright lights represent those in a club, highly implying the dance/electronic genre. Simply the fact that the video is set in the streets of the city of New York strongly suggests the genre, as dance or electronic is highly linked with urbanisation (as opposed to giving connotations of fields and mountains as some folk music may!). New York itself has strong connections with the genre with it being at theroots of some reggae/dub music. The main actor in the video is very much a misfit in the whole mise-en-scene. His shaggy clothes and general disadvantaged appearance are a contradiction to his big city surroundings as well as breaking the social representation group of electronic fans. There are also some shots that are taken in an underground car park, a very dark, eerie mise-en-scene. This connotes the nature of the roots of the genre, with it being less popular music, yet more dark ‘underground’ music, listened to by the minority.

In terms of linking the lyrics with the visuals, there is one stage in the video where the man is stumbling along and trips, consequently clutching onto a wire fence at the exact moment where the lyrics correspond to said visuals, repeating “let’s get electrified”. This alone implies that the fence itself is an electric one, presenting New York as a metaphorical prison, as if the man is trapped in a life of struggle, misery and confusion whilst others around him continue to ignore his pain. This portrays the city as a dystopia, like a futuristic metropolis inhabited by emotionless robots that ignore the man’s existence, much like the films bladerunner and the matrix. An example of this is in the video where the man’s hand shatters off like porcelain, and looks up to a passer-by with a look seemingly hopeful for reassurance as if hoping to be offered a hand, though is blanked as the passer-by continues walking.

The lead role in the video very much represents how black culture had been falling apart in New York, by the fact that his limbs are literally falling apart and shattering into pieces. The falling apart of this lead character could be a metaphor for how the black culture are being overrun by the white culture of metropolitan life, and how they are having their roots (referring to the reggae/dub music) taken away by the whites, having been the culture who initially came up with it; having their culture robbed from them. A better example of this is how the break dancers in the video are dancing in front of the black character to the music from which originally came from his descendents and roots. This challenges the ethnic stereotype to reggae/dub/electronica music and break dancing as it is typically more partaken in and enjoyed by a black background. The video itself suggests white dominance through such techniques as lowangle shots, which from the lead character’s point of view, imply that the black man is insignificant and being looked down upon. Throughout the video he appears lost and confused, portrayed to the audience via a number of close-up shots. This also suggests white dominance as if he has been swallowed up by the white society, alone and isolated. The message that it is clearly getting across is that being black in America is extremely difficult, to just be noticed in society and to be treated as an equal can seem impossible through the eyes of an ethnic minority.