Music Video: Common - Letter to the Free
Music Video: Common - Letter to the Free
Our first Music Video CSP is Common - Letter to the Free.
This is a stunning music video and protest song that documents black American culture and the legacy of slavery.
Notes from the lesson
Common: a pioneering artist
Common is a Black American cultural icon who has maintained a political and social concern in his music. At one of the most charged periods in American history, the video Letter to the Free is presented as his contribution to the divisive political and social issues of contemporary America, a sense that he is attempting to draw attention to initiating a new wave of ‘protest music’.
Michael Eric Dyson on Common
Dyson on black stereotypes and Common: “Many critics don’t account for the complex ways that some artists in hip hop play with stereotypes to either subvert or reverse them. Amid the pimp mythologies and metaphors that gut contemporary hip hop, rappers like Common… seize on pimpology’s prominence to poke fun at its pervasiveness.
“Hip hop is still fundamentally an art form that traffics in hyperbole, parody, kitsch, dramatic license, double entendres, signification, and other literary and artistic conventions to get its point across.”
Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean (2007)
Common - Selma soundtrack
Common and John Legend wrote Glory as the soundtrack for Selma, a 2014 film portraying the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, a key moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
The marches were a non-violent protest to demonstrate the desire of black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
Common returned to the theme of protest with Letter to the Free – highlighting the mass incarceration of black Americans.
Common: Letter to the Free
Work through the following tasks to create a comprehensive case study for Common's Letter to the Free.
Social and cultural context
Read this Billboard interview where Common talks about Letter to the Free, political hip hop and contemporary American society. Use the article and the notes we have made in lessons (also available above) to answer the following questions on the social, cultural and genre contexts for Letter to the Free.
1) What other projects has Common been involved in over recent years?
2) What is the 13th Amendment of the American Constitution?
3) What were the Black Codes?
This is a stunning music video and protest song that documents black American culture and the legacy of slavery.
Notes from the lesson
Common: a pioneering artist
Common is a Black American cultural icon who has maintained a political and social concern in his music. At one of the most charged periods in American history, the video Letter to the Free is presented as his contribution to the divisive political and social issues of contemporary America, a sense that he is attempting to draw attention to initiating a new wave of ‘protest music’.
Michael Eric Dyson on Common
Dyson on black stereotypes and Common: “Many critics don’t account for the complex ways that some artists in hip hop play with stereotypes to either subvert or reverse them. Amid the pimp mythologies and metaphors that gut contemporary hip hop, rappers like Common… seize on pimpology’s prominence to poke fun at its pervasiveness.
“Hip hop is still fundamentally an art form that traffics in hyperbole, parody, kitsch, dramatic license, double entendres, signification, and other literary and artistic conventions to get its point across.”
Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean (2007)
The marches were a non-violent protest to demonstrate the desire of black Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
Common returned to the theme of protest with Letter to the Free – highlighting the mass incarceration of black Americans.
Common: Letter to the Free
Letter to the Free was directed by Bradford Young (the cinematographer on Selma). The video has the camera moving at a slow, aching pace through an empty prison where Common, singers Andra Day and Bilal, and other musicians perform the song in different spaces in the prison rooms.
A black square hovering in the air appears throughout the clip, which, in a final shot, is framed as empty space in a field.
Amendment 13: ‘Black Codes’
The song was written for Ava DuVernay’s Netflix documentary 13th focusing on the historic legacy of the 13th amendment to the US Constitution. Theoretically written to outlaw slavery, the 13th Amendment had the effect of paving the way for local and State law reforms that created loopholes that effectively enabled the continued enslavement of Black Americans through mass imprisonment. The so-called Black Codes, introduced at state level in the southern states, provided for forced labour as punishment for petty crimes that in reality only applied to the newly emancipated black slaves.
Common - Letter to the Free blog tasks
Work through the following tasks to create a comprehensive case study for Common's Letter to the Free.
Social and cultural context
Read this Billboard interview where Common talks about Letter to the Free, political hip hop and contemporary American society. Use the article and the notes we have made in lessons (also available above) to answer the following questions on the social, cultural and genre contexts for Letter to the Free.
1) What other projects has Common been involved in over recent years?
2) What is the 13th Amendment of the American Constitution?
The thirteenth Amendment states: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
The Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866 in the United States after the American Civil War with the plan and the impact of confining African Americans' opportunity, and of convincing them to work in a work economy dependent on low wages or obligation
4) Why do people suggest that the legacy of slavery is still a crucial aspect to American culture 150 years after it was abolished by the 13th Amendment?
people still suggest this as it was a huge part of their culture and is still there but in other forms as they are not treated the same still in certain circumstances.
5) Why was Ava DuVernay inspired to make the Netflix documentary 13th?
individuals still propose this as it was a colossal piece of their way of life is still there however in different structures as they are not treated a similar still in specific conditions.
6) Focusing on genre, what was the most significant time period for the rise in political hip hop?
Ava DU Vernay was propelled to make the Netflix narrative ' thirteenth' since it investigates the historical backdrop of race and the criminal equity framework in the USA.
music in the late '80s and '90s that was genuinely intelligent of a development. It was the development of dark strengthening, dark love, awareness, simply staying alert. It was the majority of the above mentioned," Common said. "Clearly, things experience development, it changes. I don't think, at this moment all in all, we have that in hip-jump. Around then, most of the hip-bounce was a star dark development - Big Daddy Kane, Mo D, N.W.A had stuff that was stating something as well.
8) What album is Letter to the Free taken from? What was the critical reception for this album? You'll need to research this - the Wikipedia entry for the album is a good place to start.
Regular has discharged the most recent melody from his approaching eleventh collection,' Black America Again'. Letter to the free highlights Bilal on the tune and was the first debuted in a live exhibition for NPR recorded at the White House Library for the South by South Lawn occasion
Close-textual analysis and representation
Re-watch the music video several times to complete the following tasks in specific detail:
1) How does the Letter to the Free music video use cinematography to create meanings for the audience? (Camera shots and movement).
Regular has discharged the most recent melody from his approaching eleventh collection,' Black America Again'. Letter to the free highlights Bilal on the tune and was the first debuted in a live exhibition for NPR recorded at the White House Library for the South by South Lawn occasion
Close-textual analysis and representation
Re-watch the music video several times to complete the following tasks in specific detail:
1) How does the Letter to the Free music video use cinematography to create meanings for the audience? (Camera shots and movement).
- " no exorbitant clamor" yet they are as yet playing instruments and singing to demonstrate they are characterizing the framework
- long shot depicts how far dark individuals are from accomplishing what they need.
- 360 shot around the artist to demonstrate time has past however opportunity is as yet required
- toward the begin the camera was pushing ahead yet towards the end it was moving in reverse
- rundown building recommends what individuals think about dark individuals/
toward the begin the camera was pushing ahead however towards the end it was moving in reverse which the gathering of people can demonstrate and recognize group of onlookers distinguishing proof
the video is in highly contrasting to demonstrate the issue being looked in America by the white and dark individuals
4) How is mise-en-scene used to construct meaning for the audience - prison setting, costume, props, lighting, actor placement?
- piano is more from the jaz class yet is added to this video as a mixture.
- individuals dressed intelligently
- ladies were not externalised
- lighting was lowkey to make a genuine tone
- couldn't see the general population appearances to demonstrate that dark individuals have an absence of personality
'Shot me with your beam firearm And now you need to best me' which recommends that the legislature isn't doing anything
6) What is the significance of the floating black square motif? Discuss your own interpretations alongside Common's explanation of it in the Billboard feature linked above.
It speaks to the unending thing about obscurity and darkness can't be characterized in time or space."
7) How does the video reference racism, slavery and the oppression of black culture? Make reference to specific shots, scenes or moments in the video.
the video reference bigotry and subjugation through the verse. in the verses Common is essentially saying they are as yet experiencing bondage however in an alternate structure and how they are not treated similarly by the police particularly
the video reference bigotry and subjugation through the verse. in the verses Common is essentially saying they are as yet experiencing bondage however in an alternate structure and how they are not treated similarly by the police particularly
8) How can Gilroy's idea of black diasporic identity be applied to Common's Letter to the Free?
Normal is attempting to tell individuals how hard it was and still is for dark individuals in America, because of the white industrialist culture in America which strengthen the issues of how dark individuals have an absence of opportunity
9) What other theories of race and ethnicity can be applied to this video? E.g. Hall, Rose or Dyson.
Dyson's hypothesis can be connected here in light of the fact that this video is attempting to give a significant message and as a great deal of importance to it contrasted with others.
Equity dark individuals face in America.
prejudice
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