Musical Genre
I mean it's rap and hip hop right? The guys are basically speaking to the rhythm of music, which in my books counts as rap. Also their confident and mean attitude plus the fact that they have their own hand sign all scream hip hop to me.
I don't know any subgenres of music, so let's just say that our friend Wikipedia says that the music of Run the Jewels is "alternative hip hop", "conscious hip hop" and "harcore hip hop." Sounds exciting.
Reading Wikipedia I can't comment on the alternative hip hop part. It would require me to understand other music genres which alternative hip hop draws from. I guess more people can make their own conclusions by watching the video.
But the part about conscious hip hop I can see in the video because of it's police and prison themes. The video is commenting on how crime witness is pressured into accusing the people police wants. They also show the growth of prison population in the U.S.
Hardcore hip hop part I can also see because it's defined by angry and aggressive nature of the music. Artists are pretty much such telling how big and bad they are with gun images. Just the way they rap sounds quite confident and angry at times.
All this being said, I'm sure there are people more into music who know all this better.
Gender
The video doesn't really do anything to challenge any existing gender roles. The artists, Killer Mike and El-P look like your average men wearing clothing meant for men. Police officers are all men, probably because usually people first think of a man when thinking cops, and they're supposed to be just cops in the video.
In case of some characters the gender is used to reinforce the existing thoughts viewer and "the witness" -character have. Little girl in the video does look more innocent than a boy would, because of existing stereotypes of boys being more wild. Nun is of course woman. Heroic firefighter is man to reinforce the image of a good man who takes care of you. This is all to reinforce the fact that looks and prejudices can be deceiving.
Non-binary genders are not represented in the video, as far as I can tell.
World View
The video is commenting on the problematic nature of American police force. The two rappers have been taken in as suspects and from the beginning you can tell cops are sure they are guilty. We see rappers going to the police lineup again and again always with different company. We see cops pressuring the witness to accuse the rappers. The guilty can't be the nun or little girl or police officer right?
This is all commenting on real life situations where cops arrest a person just because they look and talk like a criminal in their mind. At the end of the video we see all the "innocent" suspects outside smoking and sharing money, implying that they were the guilty par all along. Video's message in my mind is that the police in America are prejudiced and unjust.
There's also mention of growing prison population in the U.S. This for me drives home the point about how broken the system is in minds of the artists and director. Prisons keep filling up because cops keep arresting people that just happen to fit their image of a criminal. (As a side note I recommend checking Ava DuVernay's Netflix documentary about American prison system, 13TH)
Closing thoughts
I really like this song and music video. I'm not good at listening or understanding lyrics of any song, but just the general attitude works for me. In that way I'm very shallow when it comes to listening to music. It's just about whether I like how it sounds or not. Even when it comes to my thoughts about "Legend Has It" I wouldn't have noticed if my friend hadn't shown me the video some time ago.
So if you feel like I completely misunderstood the video or something else, I don't actually care that much.
Have fun! Love and respect each other <3
- O.K.
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