Comparing Grandmaster Flash And The Message And Jay Z's Empire State Of Mind

According to Jeff Chang, “By the beginning of 2005, hip-hop music, in particular, had become a weapon of mass distraction— abused by corporate media monopolies with their deployments of blockbuster-minded execs, reactionary programmers, and vernacular shock jocks, incurring a grassroots clapback from hip-hop activists dismayed at the pimping of their culture” (Chang, xi). In other words, the author points out that the new age of hip hop has lost the true meaning of the genre and is too focused on making a big hit that will take the world by storm. The society that people are living in today are among a commercial era of hip hop, so it is appropriate to compare the sounds and visuals of what millennials have been raving over since 2005, to the original sound that started a movement that has evolved over
thirty years.
By using Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s video for “the Message” and Jay Z’s video for “Empire State of Mind” one can notice comparisons and contrasts in setting, lyrical content, and representation of women.
Music videos revolve around location and where the artist is at, during different moments throughout the video. The setting is a crucial element that enables the viewer to have a better understanding of what places and environments the musician was thinking of when writing the song. In Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s music video “The Message”, the setting showcases an urban, rough part of town, but in Jay Z’s music video “Empire State of Mind” the setting mainly displays famous and well known parts of New York City. This difference is significant because the audience can get an idea of what growing up or living in this city is really like. In “The Message” there is litter and broken glass on the street, homeless people sitting in forsaken areas, and unkempt
homes in the background of the video. However, the same cannot be said for “Empire State of Mind” because a vast number of skyscrapers are shown as well as easily identifiable places such as Yankee Stadium, Times Square, and more. Grandmaster Flash is depicting the diminished area that he is from, while Jay Z is showing how he is now successful and in a higher social class in the area that he resides in. Understanding that key difference will show how both perspectives of where the two rappers are from, differ. It allows the audience to see opposite opinions of the same place. One views the city as a dangerous battleground, while the other sees it as a place that brings success. After examining the two settings are comparable because they both take place in heavily populated cities with taxi cabs, stores intensely near each other, that it’s too close for comfort, tenements, etc. The divergent and identical interpretations of these artists’ hometown allows the audience to understand the lyrical content based off its visual interpretation.
Lyrics are what give a song meaning and allows an artist to express themselves freely. These two songs that do that have noticeably different messages. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s music video “The Message” features lyrical content that discusses the struggles of living in the place that they’re from, while Jay Z’s video “Empire State of Mind” reveals the city as a positive light. In “The Message” the very first words we hear are, “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under”, which equates to the Furious Five suggesting that they’re from a jungle with danger, recklessness, and competition to be at the top. This constant threat could possibly put him “under” and by saying under he means dead and buried under the ground. In “Empire State of Mind”, Alicia Keys sings, “New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do”. This lyric means that New York City is filled with tall skyscrapers that hold the dreams and aspirations of millions of people from across the globe and many fantasists will find success in this big city. One artist sees this heavily populated area as a menacing jungle, while the other sees it as a jungle filled with enchantment that will make someones dreams come true. The difference between the two lyrics allows the audience to have an insight on these two different artist’s lives. It can also change the listener’s perspective on how this particular setting truly is. Is it a negative area or a positive one? A similarity between the two songs are that they both reference drug use. Jay Z says that “MDMA got you feeling like a champion” and in “The Message” they say “You'll admire all the number-book takers thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money-makers.” Pusher meaning drug dealer. The importance of featuring drug use in both lines is that they display a positive view upon narcotics and admiring that certain lifestyle in the city. The lyrics have made it to where many people can relate to or at least have a better insight of the entertainer’s life. In hip hop, women have historically played a role in music videos to sometimes symbolize a trophy or convince viewers of other things. In Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s video they portray women as casual people, walking on the sidewalk and going to a local store. One could say this symbolizes that its fine for women to look the way they already are. In Jay Z’s video, he shows them as upper class people that only desire the finest things in life. They look like they are all wearing designer clothing from head to toe. Seeing the women dressed like this means that in the big city this is the level of success one could get if they move to a similar metropolis. This noticeably diverse ways the women are dressed is important to understand how old hip hop and new hip hop differ in the way that women are represented. In more recent history the artist cares a lot about flashiness and like their women dressed in chic, expensive clothing to showcase the importance of beauty and wealth, but in the earlier days of hip hop we don’t see this type of flashiness among the women. One can infer that this is the case because artist at the time didn’t see women as an important component to visual storytelling, but in this commercial era of hip hop, women are important to showcase how popular as well as powerful the male artist is. The similarity between the females that were represented is that they mainly feature people of color, specifically African Americans. This is component of the two videos because we see which races of women are on full display. The fact that most of them are African American show that these two artists value black women and wish to see them represented in their content. Seeing mainly African American women in modern videos have become extinct because musicians are constantly putting racially ambiguous females into the visuals. By comparing videos from the beginning of the hip hop movement to a video from more recent years, one can clearly see how the setting of videos have altered from local sceneries where the musician is from to a broader landscape to depict the main points that the artist is rapping about. The viewer can also tell the difference between lyrical content and how the opinions of a certain metropolitan area can evolve over time. In these music videos, the representation of women has brought upon discussions of how specific artists view women, as a regular human being or an overly sexualized person that’s draped in all designer and used to stir up controversy. The way that society listens to and views hip hop will change for the better as well as the worse over time, but things change and it is a genre that won’t stop growing because the world and the cultures that partake in this artistic movement will always evolve.