Representation Of Ethnicity

There are many different representations of ethnicities in music videos. Starting off with pop artists, many of the artists are seen to be white. For example, the most popular pop artists Adele, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Katy Perry etc all come from the same ethnic background. However, some of the artists have been known to act black in their videos and some female artists have been represented to be innocent and weak. This is evident in Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. In this video Swift sings 'white men run the show, black men play support, all the women get mostly naked, and black women get to hold up the bottom of the objectification pile.' Lyrics like these have had a common increase over the years. 

Rap music is mainly sung by black music artists like Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Rae Sremmurd, Jay Z, Kanye West. According to some people, the kind of songs that are sung by black artists are seen to be explicit promoting bad behaviour and hate. In addition, a huge amount of wealth is shown in majority of the videos like expensive cars, drugs and gold jewellery. This is apparent in music videos like Money Machine by Gucci Mane. Even the name of the song and artist show wealth, Gucci being one of the most expensive designers and money being the most popular means of exchange. However, they do try and subvert the stereotypes of black people as they may be suggesting crime is good for no reason. 

In contrast to the above, some rap music is sung by white artists. At first this was not taken seriously in the music industry but everything changed when Eminem came along. Eminem is one of the most popular artists who raps about his personal experiences however they can be violent and homophobic which can raise questions in society. Another popular artist is Macklemore who raps about the diffference between wealthy and poor.