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Chance The Rapper
Chancellor Bennett is a Chicago-born Rap artist (hence “The Rapper”). Eldest of two, Chance and his younger brother, Taylor, grew up in West Chatham in Chicago's South Side. His brother is an aspiring artist and their father, Ken Williams-Bennett served as an aide to Harold Washington, Chicago's former Mayor, and also worked for Barack Obama whilst he was senator. Growing up, young Chancellor performed in school talent shows. He went on to form a Hip Hop duo titled "Instrumentality" with a colleague at the age of 15.
Chance The Rapper gained recognition in 2013 for the release of his second mixtape “Acid Rap”. His debut mixtape was “10 Day” (2012), and his latest release, “Surf” (2015), is as part of a group named “The Social Experiment”. The story behind his "10 Day" mixtape was told by Chance in a video: he received a 10 Day suspension from school for getting caught with weed on campus. During this suspension he worked on his first full-length project fittingly titled "10 Day". Following the release of a track off the mixtape, "Windows", he was soon plastered on the cover of Complex magazine, highlighted as one of "10 New Chicago Rappers to Watch Out For".
In July 2012, Chance made an appearance on fellow rapper Childish Gambino's "Royalty" mixtape. Less than a year later, Chance released his second mixtape "Acid Rap", featuring guest artists Childish Gambino, Action Bronson, Ab-Soul, Vic Mensa, and others. He then featured on Gambino's 2013 album "because the internet".
When it comes to musical style, Chance creates his own. He is known for his highly complex flow patterns; his fusing of rapped and sung vocals; his lyricism that tackles personal growth; and his highly symbolic storytelling and political and social criticism. Chance The Rapper is an artist who challenges norms, and musically his sound and style is anything but the norm. Chance has also consistently avoided record labels, refusing to be signed. His sole purpose of making music is to have fun with his friends. Because of this, he doesn’t make music for money, it’s all free.
Hey Ma
Family Matters
Sunday Candy "Short Film"
Everybody's Something
Chance's music videos are slightly diverse in his own way, subverting the general stereotypes of Rap videos. While his videos have a main focus on him, the artist, they still manage to shed light on the other big parts of his life, e.g. his family, friends, and fans. No video is solely about himself to a narcissistic level, he manages to pay respect to the things he holds dearest. For example, in his video "Hey Ma" Chance raps about his mother and how she was an important part of his childhood and growing up. In the video we see photo cards within which his childhood photos are displayed and also, using editing, he is seen rapping in the location seen through the photo cards. The video consists of mostly him but is actually dedicated to his mother. Liken to this is his "Family Matters" music video where we are shown childhood videos along with shots of his life now, showing a comparison between then and now. This comparison shows the growth and expansion of his "family" over the years (including his fans) and how they retain importance in his life.
These ideas of homage, selflessness, and consideration shown through these videos influence me in making my own music video; to somehow implement this in a way that stays relevant to our chosen narrative. I hope to create a video that isn't heavily narcissistic but humble enough to show appreciation of other important aspects of the artists' lives within the narrative.
Earl Sweatshirt
Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (Earl Sweatshirt) was born in Chicago on February 24, 1994. He's an American rapper, a former member of Rap group Odd Future, and son of Keorapetse Kgositsile, a South African poet and political activist.
Earl began rapping in 2008 using the name Sly Tendencies, posting tracks for his mixtape "Kitchen Cutlery" on MySpace. Tyler, The Creator discovered Sly Tendencies through his MySpace account and, towards the end of 2009, recruited him - now called Earl Sweatshirt - to the Rap group Odd Future. This collective have appeared in mainstream magazines such as Billboard and Spin.
Earl's debut mixtape, "Earl", was self-released onto the Odd Future website in March 2010 and was rated the 24th-best album of 2010 by Complex. After the release of his "Earl" mixtape, Thebe's mother (Cheryl Harris, a law professor at University of California) sent him to a boarding school in Samoa until his 18th birthday, apparently due to him getting into trouble. Whilst there, he read Manning Marable's biography on Malcolm X and also wrote rhymes for his verse on "Oldie", a track on "The OF Tape Vol. 2" (2012) and his only contribution to the mixtape. During the month of April, 2012, Earl Sweatshirt created his own record label "Tan Cressida", distributed through Columbia Records. He featured on Frank Ocean's 2012 album "channel ORANGE" on a track titled "Super Rich Kids". Earl Sweatshirt released his debut studio album "Doris" in August 2013, featuring fellow rappers Tyler, The Creator, Domo Genesis, Mac Miller, Vince Staples, and others, including a track titled "Burgundy" produced by Pharrell Williams. The album was praised by The Guardian and Los Angeles Times for Earl's rhyme schemes and lyrics, and the gritty underground production. Earl Sweatshirt's most recent album "I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside: An Album by Earl Sweatshirt" (March 2015) was announced on October 2014.
Recently, Earl Sweatshirt has been working on new music, with an unreleased track ("Mirror") leaked onto SoundCloud. The song is said to be part of Samiyam's upcoming album. Earl has also been working with Chance The Rapper, both rumored to feature on Kanye West's new album "The Life of Pablo".
EARL
Hive
WHOA
Grief
Earl's music videos have drastically developed over the past 5 years. His first music video for "Earl" looks as though it was shot with a handheld camera with a fish-eyed lens. The narrative is short and messy: Earl and his friends meet up, drink, and get dangerously wasted. His later videos look more professional, with angles and movements to an expert degree. Earl's "Hive" track off of his "Doris" album show these exceptionally well. "Hive" consists of low key lighting, blurring effects, steady pans, and visual editing. The low key lighting creates a grim, creepy atmosphere, along with the blurring effects, adding obscureness and shading clarity. With visual editing we can see the wallpapers of the room moving, though they shouldn't be; Earl rubs over his eyes to reveal that they have been removed; and giant masked figures are seen creeping up the fence behind Earl in a long shot. Then Earl's "Grief" video takes it further, with the entire video shot in inverted "luminous" grayscale. All objects and people in the video are displayed as glowing shades of gray, while everything else looks like empty space. The video has a very dark theme, with heavy bass and dark everything. This gloomy music video consists of Earl sitting on a couch smoking; people standing around, idle, almost frozen; glowing rats and black snakes contrasting the white; a girl walking through a corridor and diving into an invisible pool; and Earl standing in a ring of drummers wearing clown masks (indicated by the round noses), with one of the five drumkits on fire. Slow zooms and pans are used in the majority of the scenes.
From these video I can infer that Earl Sweatshirt's music videos have developed over the years, each with less and less clear narrative but diverging towards a dark and grim theme. I don't take much influence from his music videos because they are very different from my idea for our music video, but I do admire the cinematography used in each one. Despite the gloomy theme he has going on, Earl's videos are well shot and the cinematography and editing are very cool to watch.