Coursework Research - Joe Crowley

M.I.A's 2010 release "Born Free" features one of the most controversial music videos of 2010, although in the current political context, the praise attributed to Childish Gambino's "This is America" would likely also be applied to Born Free as well, however the controversy at the time, led to the video being removed from YouTube in the US and UK. Despite this, it received positive critical reception due to its representation of political turmoil and oppression and was nominated for “Best Dance Video” at the 2010 UK Music Video Awards. The video parallels the Tamil Genocide during the Sri Lankan Civil War with M.I.A being a Tamil refugee who experienced the full effect of the Civil War, such as her primary school being shot at by soldiers and being destroyed in a government raid. It was inspired by footage of Tamil men being killed by the Sri Lankan army filmed on mobile phones. The video juxtaposes the general conception of genocide and corrupt governm...

Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino's "This is America", was arguably the most significant single of 2018. Winning song and music video of the year at the 2018 Grammy's and surpassing 648 million views on YouTube. The music video follows Glover through a single-take continuous shot as he makes his way through a warehouse, while this is happening Glover provides a commentary on violence in and towards the African-American community, the bystander effect in the internet era, police brutality, Jim Crow and racial stereotypes, and gun violence. While in terms of genre the trap-gospel hybrid is a sonic divergence from the traditional punk aesthetic of a protest song - the messaging and semantics convey that protest and a sense of anger at the status quo is not limited to a single genre. The music video opens up with the hand-held camera moving in to a chair and guitar in an otherwise empty warehouse, enter stage right a black man picks up guitar, and begin...