Video Deconstruction Nicki Minaj ft Rhianna

FLY

Artist: Nicki Minaj

Song: (ft Rhianna) Fly

Album: Pink Friday

Year:2011

Director: Sanaa Hamri

Genre: R&B

Narrative/Performance

"Fly" is a song by Trinidadian recording artist Nicki Minaj featuring Barbadian R&B singer Rihanna. The track was produced by J.R. Rotem and co-produced by Kevin Hissink. The song is inspired by the emotion of soaring above and overcoming all stereotypes and negativity, only to have come out victorious. The song charted in multiple countries including Canada and the United Kingdom due to strong digital sales following the release of Pink Friday.- Wikipedia

1. The video starts with a close up of a Jaguar, this immediately signifies that this artist has a lot of money as it is a top of the range Jaguar. The setting for the video is some sort of waste land, it is very foggy and there is burnt out planes and other objects. Most of the video is shot in different parts of this 'waste land'. With CU of Nicki and Rihanna and panning establishing shot of the set. Which begins to look like a junk yard. There is lots of shot variation in this video.

2. Ninki is known for her wacky outfits and her many different wigs.In this video shes wears 4. This is hat makes her different and stand out. This is an example of how artists neeed to have a USP these days, being a good singer or rapper. Another example of this is when Rhianna went to her rocky/edgy style for her 2nd album Good Girl Gone Bad.

3. Then Rhianna enters the scene for the chorus the camera mainly becomes focus on her with many CU of her face and legs, i think this is because she is such a huge star having her on screen should help get the video publicity. Both women are wearing outfits where their chest is exposed. This plays up to the male gaze theory.  Later on in the video Nicki wear a very tight cat suit.

4. At a later part in the video there is a scene where there is no lip-syncing and Nicki is fighting ninjas. I think that the ninjas represent the negativity and stereotypes and by Nicki slaying them she is over-coming the negativity.