Music Video Analyses

Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, hip-hop and dance


Downtown - Macklemore
Genre - Contemporary R&B
Downtown is a modern day tribute to early hip-hop following the codes and conventions of the genre (Goodwin) whilst also following Macklemore's iconography of a humorous music video with an early 80's vibe too.
Typical conventions featured in this video are: shots of buildings, performance/narrative style (Lynch), graffiti, a big 'crew' or following, rapping whilst walking and or dancing with the camera tracking, cars etc (Gow song and dance number).
The video was shot in Spokane, Washington which was perfect as the downtown business district is packed full of buildings which are so commonly seen in hip-hop/ rap music videos.  The location perfectly represents the hip-hop culture.
The dancing in the music video has elements of soul and funk but works with the style of music.
The video features topless men and skinny women (Goodwin - voyeurism) provocatively licking lollipops which coincides with the hegemonic heterosexual ideologies and also the male gaze (Laura Mulvey) which is true to hip-hop and rap music videos

The camera tracks Macklemore as he rides his moped throughout downtown Washington and also while he's walking with his crew, something that occurs in a lot of hip-hop videos because hip-hop and rap is all about a big community and crew, so having the main singer surrounded by lots of people shows this off perfectly.


There's a lot of intertextuality in this music video (Goodwin) from West Side Story, tributes to old school hip-hop and Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk feature in this music video, there's even cameos from famous old school rappers Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz and Kool Moe Dee.
Something to make note of is the fact that there is a massive contrast in hip-hop music videos in terms of money and flashing cash.  Like this video, a lot of hip-hop/ rap music videos are of rappers who have made it, who have the means and money to make big music videos about how well they're doing, but in America, 'downtown' often refers to urban areas with gun-crime, gangs and poor families who can only dream of buying 'mopeds' for the hell of it as Macklemore does to easily in his video.  I think there are definitely some big similarities between Downtown's music video and other hip-hop music videos but I think this one misses the point of in my opinion, 'real' hip hop which raps about problems with raw emotion, rappers who have actually lived and experienced the true 'downtown' - flaws and all.