Alright by Kendrick Lamar music video anaysis

Alright by Kendrick Lamar

Music video analysis 

In this music video he connects the violence associated with Apartheid in South African with police brutality in the United States. 

This music video is set in Oakland, Oakland has a deep history of police brutality cases therefore it is the perfect location for a video themed around dirty lay enforcement. An example of the cases includes an article which reports that 74 million dollars was spent settling 417 police brutality lawsuits in Oakland alone. Another was with Oscar Grant, a black man killed by a police officer in 2009. This was one of the first widespread accounts of police brutality to be captured on a cell phone and shared throughout social media. This lead to much public outrage, protest and riots.

Kendrick Lamar made this music video in order to inform the public of the many cases that regard this issue of brutality within our society. 

Therefore this protest is against violence (in particular unnecessary violence partaken by police) 

Throughout the music video especially at the beginning the scene is set, it seems very calm and tranquil but when the song begins to start you gain an understanding of the violence that can take place within a beautiful setting. This juxtaposition causes the viewer to wonder what is the cause of this violence. The first face that's shown is a policeman's therefore the violence taking place after is associated with the police. 

There are many low angle shots used within this music video this is used to make the characters in the frame look bigger than everything else, this has the effect of making the characters look heroic and/ or dominant.

One of the most impactful scenes is where a police officer slams a man to ground, when the camera angle switches you notice that it's a wall and he's being manhandled by a white police officer, the man tries to run away and without hesitation the officer pulls his gun and mouths the words freeze before pulling the trigger. The gun discharge being put into slow motion adds a level of intensity to the scene. The emphasis on the gun may have been to show the viewer the violence that is involved with the police.

There is a lot of bad language used within the lyrics of this song, this may have been used to emphasises the severity of the issue and the distress that it causes people.
Within the song Kendrick recites "while my love ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one, a war that was based on apartheid and discrimination." here he is referring to the violence police show towards black people as the war. 

Mise-en-scene 

They have put the music video in black and white in order to remove the racial element. This expresses to the audience that race shouldn't matter. 

The police's uniform is darkened suggesting that they are evil. At the beginning when the police are carrying the car they're presented with black and the people within the car are presented with white. 

Within this music video the police's uniform serves as a symbol of violence developing negative connotations with the police.