Record Label and Production Company

Before Atlantic Record he was distributing his music through his own record label called Taylor Gang. The Taylor Gang was originally coined in 2006 to refer to "Taylor's" who are supporters of Wiz Khalifa.
Taylor Gang Ent. was founded in 2008 by Khalifa. The record label was named after Khalifa's alma mater, Taylor Allderdice High School, and his affinity for Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers.Taylor Gang Ent. began as Khalifa's fan base network, street team and home to his crew. The entity later became a full entertainment company encompassing record label, management services, production & film companies. Chevy Woods, Berner, and Tuki Carter all signed to the record label in 2011. In December 2012, Juicy J joined the entertainment company.In 2013, Ty Dolla $ign joined the company as well. In 2014, J.R. Donato signed to the label.King Ken & Kmatic KelZ signed to the label in early 2016.
The record label also doubles as a super group and announced plans to release an album as a group in 2016.

Taylor Gang Ent. partnered with brands to create licensing deals, most notably, Grenco Science in 2014 for a series of vaporizer products and Neff to produce a special 26-piece apparel collection composed of T-shirts, jerseys and hats, which were a creative collaboration among the label's artists and Neff. The label signed a distribution deal with Atlantic Records although some artists on the label are still distributed by EMPIRE.

Reasoning For Chosen Artist And track

I have chosen my Wiz Khalifa as an artist, because he has a very different style compare to other Hip-Hop, rap artists. This is because of his look, the way he behaves, and the way he speaks. His different style within the industry gives him an extra attention, especially because he has his own record label company at the side of his main record, Atlantic Records, and his music is not distributed through VEVO in Youtube which would give him extra advertisement. Also he has the 2^nd most listened music on Youtube with over 2 billion views.  

I have chosen Wiz Khalifa – So high song, because it is one of my favourite song from him, and its lyrics has a lot of meaning and signifiers behind its surface.
The beat is quite slow and acoustic which we can hear at the beginning of the song. The beat joins in at the 58^th second of the song. The beat under the track is quite light but it has a faster tempo to it, which is very unusual to a hip-hop song, especially, because we are talking about Wiz Khalifa a modern rapper.

 At the beginning of the music we can hear a lighter lighting up and Wiz Khalifa inhaling and blowing out which is a non-diegetic sound and it also helps the audience associate smoking with Wiz Khalifa. 

This is a major part of his image, and it could have been created to enhance this particular feature of his image and present it to his target audience.

The course has a the same beat however it is louder and much harder and Wiz Khalifa’s voice is being looped and copied onto each other which has a really powerful effect and  that leads the music on to its peak. This could be because this part of the music relates the most to the song’s name.
The line “so high” is being mentioned in the hook a several of time. The “so high” could be an expression of Wiz Khalifa, that makes a statement about his status and feeling. It could be a signifier of him being high, as in status, that could represent how much money he has, how much records he sales, of how famous he is. Or it could also just mean that he gets high on marijuana, which as known is a big feature of his.  The song relates to smoking when saying “take toke” “hold it till you choke”, “so stoned”.

Another major reason why I have chosen this particular song is because, it does not have an official video clip to it. This will allow me to use my imagination and not to be bias about the video clip, or try to copy a particular setting.  I will be analysing Wiz Khalifa's video clips and follow the theme of it, while i will be creating a clear representation of his image and believes

The song appeals to all his target audience, which are 15-30 mainly male partly female.
this is being shown by “night, until the morning, we are rolling, rolling, rolling

My Chosen artist - Wiz Khalifa

Bio
Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by his stage name Wiz Khalifa. His parents served in military, therefore he had to move several times. Khalifa lived in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh where he attended Taylor Allderdice High School. His stage name is derived from Khalifa, an Arabic word meaning "successor", and wisdom, which was shortened to Wiz when Khalifa was a young boy. Also his grandfather was Muslim, and he gave the wisdom name for him. Therefore, his stage name’s meaning is Wisdom successor.

His image
His image is is really important. He is covered in tattoos, he smokes weed all the time, he really likes Bombay gin and he tries to keep himself to his image as strictly as possible. He did a large range of collaborations with YG, TY Dolla, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Juicy J, Ludacris.
Working with Snoop Dogg was a major influence on him as an artist and as a person as well, because Snoop is a big marijuana smoker as well, and they created several songs that were very successful, such as “Young wild and free” that has 291 million views on YouTube. Wiz and Snoop have also made a film called Max and Devin go to high school, which helped them to boost up the sales and the number of audience for the album they have made together. 

His image always remained the same in terms of what he does and what he likes, however his look has changed a lot throughout the years. He had his natural hair, afros with blond highlights, purple dreadlocks, blond dreadlocks, this is because he tries to sync his music and the changes in his style with his look. 

At the same time, whilst being represented as a gangster, with a joint in his hand all the time, who is covered in tattoos, with a lot of girls in the video clip, he also has a son From his EX wife Amber Rose. Wiz still loves and respects Amber and mentioned it in many interviews, that just because they broke up it does not mean he needs to forget about her. Also there are a lot of Snaphat videos that the media has promoted where we can see him playing with his son where we can see a different side of Wiz Khalifa.

Record labels
He signed to Warner Bros in 2007, then he moved to Atlantic Records in 2010. At the same time he was building his own empire in 2008 and he found his own record label Taylor Gang records.
This takes a big part of his life, this is because Taylor Gang is all his friends that he had from Taylor Allderdice High School, and ever since then they are still together and working on their project. He said it is “My movement that we started in high school, it is a lifestyle, a way of living”. This shows what Wiz Khalifa is really about. Also this is a major importance in his life, because he said he loved shoes however he could not afford Jordan’s or Nike shoes therefore he was wearing Chucks, (cheap version of Converse shoes) and all his friends were wearing it too, therefore they named themselves the Taylor Gang.

Khalifa Kush
He has his own branded weed that he distributes through medical marijuana shops. Khalifa Kush is a hybrid marijuana specifically planted for him that does not make u lazy but increases your creativity. 
This creates a new way of advertising his music, or his music advertising his Weed, which is a great synergetic way of working through different platforms. He has songs about it, he gives it away to fans, he shows it in video clips, which makes him brave in a way, because in some states it is illegal to smoke marijuana. 

On an interview on Heart Radio he admitted that he has been in jail 23 time s just because of Weed, but he will not stop, because he is who he is and he does not want to fool his fans by pretending that he does not smoke weed in public.
 

Initial Ideas / my mood board

The following mood board is that I have created to show my inspirations to complete the task. It shows the elements of hip-hop, which are all on the mood board.

Music Video Directors

Julien Christian Lutz (born October 31, 1975), better known as Little X, X or Director X, is a Canadian music video director. He also has his own clothing line X Fit. He was born and raised near Toronto, Ontario and is of Trininadiand  Swiss descent.

Please open the next picture up on another page by using (Right click, open on another page) or grab the picture and pull it next to your Website tabs! This is because the following pictures are high resolution pictures that is not supported by the preview on the blog. 

Bryan (born December 20, 1970) is a music video and motion picture director. He has directed many music videos for popular artists.

Barber's videos convey a classic mood often taken from previous era hits. Barber's ability to be heard as a clear and distinct authorial voice lay in his defining a unique visual style, a postmodern style that relied heavily on the use of classic film and TV clips. For example, Barber referenced Grease in the OutKast music video Roses and the Beatles' Ed Sullivan appearance in the band's video for "Hey Ya!". In the process, Barber emerged as a talent and imparted an original image to the hip-hop movement. I have chosen to look at his work due to the fact that he has had a great influence within the hip-hop industry.

Some of his work

Harold "Hype" Williams (born July 1970) is an American music video director, film director, film producer, and screenwriter.

Awards Williams has received for his video work include the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996), the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah !! Got You All in Check", the NAACP Image Award (1997), the 8th annual Music Video Production Association Award for Black Music Achievement (1997), MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) category for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy wit It", MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC's "No Scrubs", and the BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West's "Gold Digger". In 2006, Williams was honored by MTV with its Video Vanguard Award, presented in honor of his achievements as a filmmaker.
In the December 2007 issue of Playboy magazine, Williams shot the photographs for cover subject Kim Kardashian.
He directed the music video for Kanye West's single "All of the Lights", which premiered on February 19, 2011.
He was a huge part of the hip-hop culture and its development during the 90's and 2000's  which shows an advantage of looking him up and learn about his work.

Real World Resarch with Freedom Of Speech

Please note, the following video has been uploaded by me earlier on the 26th of September 2017, with different elements, however it has been taken off for copyright issues that I have not realised later on of my coursework. That is why the date within the post and the video itself will not match.


In this video I have collected some footages that I have recorded on my camera when I have attended on a music video shoot, for a UK Hip-Hop, Rap band called Freedom of Speech - Turn up the dance.
It has been a great experience and I have managed to learn a lot about lighting that they have used, the camera and its settings. Further more it has shown the amount of effort that a shoot like this requires, including the stability of the camera, costumes, lightings etc.

Music video analysis

 

 

Theory research

Conceptual /  Abstract music video
A concept video is very different from Performance and Narrative videos, this is due to the fact that concept videos are have no storyline and usually does not relate to the lyrics. Similar to conceptual art o conceptual photography, where they just present a message, information, or idea, and let the audience receive it in their own way.

Performance music video
Artists that create a performance within their music video makes the audience focus solely on the performance. Genres such as alternative rock and pop punk commonly include a performance within their music video, also there are a few artists who include a narrative in their music videos to demonstrate the meaning behind the lyrics, and to make it more visually appealing.  Entertainment, and brand image development (artist image development).

Narrative music video
telling a story, that relates or does not relates to the song’s lyrics. This means the audio elements, could match the action within the song, or could also create an alternative story line that could just contrast the song’s lyrics. There are double narrative music videos as well that allows the audience to see two different lines of stories at the same time in able to understand the song more and receive its message 

Theory research 

Andrew Goodwin
He stated that there are 5 aspect that
need to be considered when making
a music video.

1.Thought through beat.

Meaning behind the tempo of the beat, acoustics and, loudness, treble, bass the way the music has been laid out to represent the artist's thoughts values, and the message behind it.

2. relationship between the songs and visuals
It could explain what happens, it could ignore it, or amplify it by using props.

3. narrative and performance of the song
How the artist connects to its audience, and helps to develop the artist as a character.

4. technical aspect of the music
editing , special effects, syncing the music video together with the beat, mise en scene.

5. Star image
camera angles placing the artist or the main character in the middle.

Roland Barthes

 He studied , signs and signifiers, meaning the

 text could mean more than itself and also it
 could be open or closed. 

He created 5 codes

1.the hermeneutic code: is the way the story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts in order to drop clues in through out to help to create mystery

2.the enigma: the way the tension is build up and the audience is left guessing what happens next

3.the semantic code: suggests a particular often additional meaning by way of connotation which the story suggests… connotation is cultural meaning what it symbolizes

4.The symbolic code: this is very similar to the semantic code but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning. This is typically done in the use of antithesis where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas

5.the cultural code – look at the audiences wider cultural knowledge morality and ideology 

Laura Mulvey

 representation of women: how men look at them,
 how they look at themselves, how women look at other women.

She said, clips are being created to from a  male heterosexual perspective and women are being represented as sex objects.

Bell Hooks

The colour codes: lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into the western ideology of beauty.Black women are objectified and sexualised in hip-hop reflecting
 the colonialist view of black women.

Tricia Rose 

Hip hop gives black female rappers a voice introducing female empowerment.

Hip-hop gave audiences an insight into
 the lives of young black urban Americans and gave them voice.

Preliminary task