Azealia Banks – 212

The music video for this song is an amplification at it slightly retains a link with the lyrics. The first, obvious connection with the song is the fact that we can see Azealia Banks rapping/singing and act according to the lyrics almost throughout the entire video. Also, some of the lines literally appear in the music video either while they are sang/rapped or just after and nearly always in between the shots of Azealia’s lips pronouncing them. This particular kind of shot makes this scene look as those words were virtually coming out of her mouth, reminds of dialog clouds in comic books where there is no sound, only the image so you have to imagine what a specific voice would sound like. In this music video’s case, displayed lyrics, even for a few seconds, leave the words more to the viewer’s own interpretation when they are not affected by Azealia Banks presence which then might affect his/her comprehension of them. They are left pure to the viewer so he/she is more likely to be interested of the song as it reminds that person better of its own experience with e.g. ‘MADE SOME’.

The record companies usually demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist. In this music video various types of close-ups and medium shots is the essence of it. Banks’ face and the way she is performing are the things that are bringing the audience to this video because that is simply what appears throughout the vast majority of it and therefore this video is a typical example of exhibitionism. It worked. Azealia Banks herself was interesting enough in the video for ‘212’ to reach 42,961,344 views on YouTube at the time I was doing this analysis.

The type of this music video is definitely a performance, according to Simon Frith’s theory of music video typologies.

Top: extreme close up of Azealia Banks lips, bottom: the text which appears flashing while she is pronouncing it in the shot above

Azealia Banks rapping

Azealia Banks dancing