Goodwin's music video analysis

Applying Goodwin's Theory to "Africa Shox" by Leftfield

The music video for ‘Leftfield – Afrika Shox’ demonstrates many characteristics for the techno electronic genre. The mise en scene of the tall buildings and urban landscape represents the roots of the genre. Also, there are many shots of something incredible; however the camera is generally shooting the building through barbed wire. This suggests the roots of the man in the music video and connotes what his ancestors have been through. It represents imprisonment and the slavery. Along with this there is a drained pallet which connotes the grey technology. The flashing lights and police sirens in the video also demonstrate the techno electronic genre.

Throughout the video there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The words in the song ‘Africa’ suggests that the man in the video is a slave and has travelled forward in time and people still don’t care for him. Also the lyrics ‘let’s get electrified’ are said when the black man has his hand on the barbed wire. This suggests that there is an electric fence which is either keeping someone out, or someone in. They would have had this electric wiring to stop slaves from running away which relates back to the video.

In the music video the editing is in time with the beat of the music. We see that the underground is separate from the real world and the video shows the world that the music originally came from. The break dancing shows that the whites colonised dances which originally came from people of the black origin. The mise en scene and noir lighting gives an image of where the music comes from originally and the zombie like image shows that it is still alive within the people who brought it to America.

The music video has many intertextual references with the poem ‘Limbo’. It signifies how the slaves arrived in America, bare foot and in rags. He is classed as the dispossessed so he is invisible to the people surrounding him. There are mant low angle shots of the white middle class who turns away from the black man as he stumbles before him.