Afrika Shox has cultural signifiers of America, which is shown through the use of yellow taxi’s which are culturally linked to America.
The narrative structure of the music video is an African man walking through the streets of New York, he is shown to be confused and bewildered by his surroundings and loses his limbs throughout the video before finally being hit and turned to dust by a yellow taxi. The video is very shocking to the audience because of the treatment the African man receives from the Caucasian Americans. The video can be directly linked to the Slave trade and well as the modern day treatment of Africans in America.
The African man walking through the city looks very perplexed and scared and this relates to how the slaves would have felt when they arrived at America for the first time as the cultures were very different. It must have been a culture shock for the slaves and this is depicted in the video by the African male, for the first half of the music video he is the only African man shown in the mise-en-scene.
This illustrates his isolation and the isolation the African slaves must have felt on their arrival and subsequent slavery to the white Americans. The low angle shots of the buildings help construct the vulnerability of the African man and dominance of the Caucasian Americans, this dominance is heightened by the used of chain-link fences that are seen at least twice in the video which connotes imprisonment.
The scene where the African man loses his arm because of the white American business man is a very powerful scene. The African man holds out his hand to a white man and another man walks past and knocks his arm off while the first man looks on. Both men ignore him with complete apathy of his situation while the African man looks distraught, this shows the white American attitude to the Africans and was most likely how they were treated by them in the times of the slavery. The broken arm is made of clay and this reinforces the vulnerability of the African man and Africans in the times of slavery. This could also be interpreted as how Africans are alienated in modern day America and how they are still treated today even without the medieval superstitions and behaviours of the white Americans.
The underground car park has three white males street dancing which is known as an underground dance for alienated people, it originated in New York as the younger African males show of disestablishment. This means that even the white males that feel alienated in some way don’t help the African male. Two sides of the American life are shown in the music video, the high life of business men and the underground life. Neither of these types of people helps the man and this implies that even the underground of America think they are too good to help the African man. It implies the self-importance of all types of Americans.
The only person in the video that helps the African man is another African man who is dressed very well compared to the main character and obviously has a better life then him. The light behind the American man and his offer of help makes him look ethereal in the eyes of the African man and the camera is shown as a point of view shot to show that the African man see’s him in this way.
The last scene of the music video is the African man hopping into the middle of the road with his last limb (his leg as and other arm were lost earlier in the video) and gets hit by a yellow taxi. This is a powerful image because the yellow taxi is a very iconic America link and this denotes America’s uncaring nature towards the African man.
The whole music video is very colourless and has sepia colours. The only bright colours are the neon signs and this set up connotes electronica, as does the steel and industrial environment.
The music is fast paced and the camera is also fast paced and edits between the shots quickly, this supports the narrative of the African man as he is confused by the quick tempo of American life. The camera is very unstable and shaky when showing point of view shots and this also shows the African males puzzlement and instability within the environment. When he walks in the music video it seems like he is trying to keep up with the tempo of the music but failing, which connotes the difficulty African slaves would have had adjusting to life as slaves in America.
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