Case Study: JeromeD

I have decided to do my Case Study on JeromeD. Hurd who directs a lot of hip-hop music videos for Kendrick Lamar and ScHoolBoy Q most famously but also directs for other rappers such as King Los in his song WAR. He also helps Ty Dolla Sign with his music videos a lot too but I will just be focussing on the 3 artists mentioned prior.






Kendrick Lamar


Backseat Freestyle


In JeromeD's videos he always begins with a black screen and a series of titles, artist name, song title and then JeromeD but in Backseat Freestyle the editing oscillates wildly, it flickers back and forth in a monochromic tone. It then begins to title a series of places 'Paris, France' and then the conventional information in his videos such as 'JeromeD.com' but then in red writing 'Compton, CA' shows up with Lamar singing 'Martin had a dream'. The straight up connotations of equality from Martin Luther King's iconic speech is parallel with the visual aspect of  'Compton, CA' the semantics of Compton (even more so now the film Straight Outta Compton has been premiered globally) are very much of hip-hop and black culture.
Backseat Freestyle is in monochrome for all of the music video, JeromeD does this in a lot of his music videos, he puts a B&W effect on his videos that have address the inequality between Black and White cultures. He doesn't do this in Collard Greens by ScHoolBoy Q, The One by Treasure Davis or Swimming Pools (Drank) that are more party songs and don't address the white/black racial tensions that rappers accentuate frequently.
JeromeD focusses on editing as a key convention in a lot of his music videos - the radical editing in this and other songs he has directed for (Collard Greens) is used frequently to set the pace of the song by altering the colours and splitting the film symmetrically down the center.




Swimming Pools (Drank)


JeromeD also directs Kendrick Lamar's song named Swimming Pools (Drank) that is aesthetically pleasing with Kendrick Lamar suspended in the air falling into a swimming pool (of liquor) but the fall is rather the journey of the song. The lyrics claim he is 'diving' into the pool but the video implies that is falling from grace and drowning in the pool, there is a juxtaposition of lyrics and visuals which could infer that Lamar has desire to portray himself as a rapper that likes partying and getting drunk but he is actually different (complimented by the psychological confusion stated later on in the song). However in this video there is no titles at the start. This could be due to this song coming out in 2012 and the songs where the titles are at the start was all made in 2013 until now. This is an example of an iterative adaptation of JeromeD where conventions are created probably by accident, it acts as an informative and necessary additive in his videos. It not only provides the context but it sets a neutral tone, the titled-opening occurs in JeromeD's music videos where they accost racial inequality, examples: War - King Los, Backseat Freesyle - Kendrick Lamar.
Swimming Pools is a different style of film altogether compared to JeromeD's other stuff, the song shows Lamar in isolation away from the party opposed to Collard Greens. The party scene in Swimming Pools is deviant to any other party scene, JeromeD has utilised a slow-motion effect on the party scene and has laid over the video Kendrick Lamar's 'conscience' talking to him which implies psychological issues, weakness and paranoia that the protagonist could be experiencing. The tone and pace is a lot less than in other songs directed by JeromeD, however he retains his editing prowess and aesthetically intriguing conventions.




King Los


War


The music video in War is in stark contrast to other JeromeD's projects, the editing is lacking, he utilises one long shot throughout the entire video that tracks different characters and always comes back to the TV screen (complying to Goodwins theory of voyeurism as he suggests in music videos we very often watch TV/look inside a camera etc), a recurring theme in this song as the relationship between lyrics and visuals(complying to Goodwins theory about the relationship between lyrics and video) are emphasised with the lyrics
"It’s a war on your TV screen every mornin’ / Not a war with the bombs and helicopters swimming / But the a war for your soul / That’s what everyone ignoring"
the TV shows King Los singing and clips of religion, community and distressing images of an abuse of power. This montage has a very strong effect when parallel with the semantics of war against equality, the oppression of black people and the reliance on God and community, friends and family. The juxtaposition between people holding hands and police brutality is a harsh, realistic portrayal that King Los feels strongly about.
At the end of the music video when the two protagonists leave their home and family and get into a car, when they do this a man runs up to the car and shoots them both. These two concepts JeromeD and King Los utilise are both political statements that reflect the zeitgeist of Black Americans.









ScHoolBoy Q


Hands On The Wheel


I have already done one textual analysis about ScHoolBoy Q and focussed on JeromeD's editing techniques and Collard Greens so I decided to analyse another song by ScHoolBoy Q that JeromeD has directed and include a type of comparison of them.
The video is monochromic and begins with the titles "ScHoolBoy Q" "A$AP Rocky" who the song is featuring and then "Hands on the Wheel" the video is swinging like a pendulum onto two male protagonists that are smoking, this one clip is repeated a series of times but a bit differently each time, upside down and reversed but each time with a sporadic white flash giving the song an edgy feel, even though its repeated it isn't monotonous due to the pendulumic swing and movement. The video cuts to Q rapping with the video cutting to other repeated clips of women dancing and bottles/cans of alcohol. Similar to Collard Greens there are many connotations to drug taking and getting intoxicated supported by the sporadic editing that gives a visceral representation of the effects of drugs, this is a key theme in ScHoolBoy Q's videos with JeromeD.
The video also features women dancing next to the protagonists, the women are portrayed secondary to the rapper for multiple reasons: 1) they aren't the focus of the video, the record label want the rapper to be the central focus of the video to boost fame. Goodwin could claim that these are due to the demands of the record label as the portrayal of the artist is mainly by appearance and it is required that they appeal to their desired audiences.  2) Mulvey would argue that women are portrayed as second class citizens, they are decorative objects to make the rappers look more masculine.