1. Music Video Analysis Snoop Dogg – Drop It Like It’s Hot

2. Snoop Dogg Snoop Dogg is an American hip hop/rap artist and his hit single “drop it like it’s hot” (from the album R&G (Rhythm and Gangsta) The Masterpiece) was number one in the US charts and New Zealand singles chart.The music video is shot in monochrome and shows Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams dancing and singing with women expensive jewellery, cars and other materialistic things. The song itself is about dancing where the common phrase ‘Drop it like its hot’ is used meaning dancing. The content of the video would suggest that the target audience have an interest in expensive cars, jewellery and all other money-oriented objects, which is a typical feature of most hip hop videos. For example in Pharrell Williams verse “Eligible bachelor, million dollar boat” he refers to an expensive boat. the fact that so many references to expensive objects are made in the video could be a representation of the success of the artist.

3. Genre Characteristics Goodwin’s theory says that all music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. The main genre characteristic for this music video is the performance element of it, although they are not playing instruments typically hip hop songs consist of the artist singing or rapping. With one of the first medium shots of the artist dancing, another characteristic of the hip hop genre is the danceroutine itself and the style of dance, it features Snoop Dogg doing the ‘crip step’ which is a typical hip hop/street dance move, it also showsthe interest that the artist has over the music, it shows that he is enjoying it and so therefore does the crip step.The location of the music video is shot in a studio on a white backdrop,this makes it very sterile and allows for a strong contrast, this bringsfocus to the images on the screen.The video consists of close ups on materialistic objects such as expensive jewellery, cars and money. Frequent references to these objectssignifies the wealth and success of the artist, for example when the musicvideo shows a close up of a wad of money. The target audience can easily relate to the idea of having money and so therefore find it enjoyable to watch.

4. Relationship between lyrics and visuals When the lyrics are compared to the visuals in the video we can see that they are both illustrative and amplifying for example when the line ‘Drop it like its hot’ is played they show a medium long shot of the artists dancing. There are also frequent illustrative references to jewellery andcars when mentioned in the lyrics, for example “I got the rolly on myarm and I'm pouring Chandon” during this line a medium shot of Pharrell Williams Rolex watchis shown. Many other close ups are used onthese objects to give focus to the oneimage being shown.