Kanye VS Common

 I thought today's class was very interesting, especially the music videos we watched. Although they were all the same genre (rap) they all had different things to say. My group focused on the Common video of the song 'Corners.' The video began in the nicer parts of Chicago and progressed to the ghetto areas that he (Common) grew up. He showed the rougher parts of his area and was basically saying this is where he grew up and because of this he is now a famous rapper. He brought up the fact that an education doesn't really get one anywhere and the way to live a life there is to sell drugs and join a gang. On one side it seemed like he was glorifying the ghetto and showing people that because of his upbringing he is now a successful rapper but also saying that not everyone from the ghetto can become a celebrity like him. Another interesting video was the last Kanye West video. It was more of a story line than just random clips like Common's video. It also seemed like a Sierra Leone awareness video showing people where their diamonds really come from. Kanye looked down on the white powerful groups by going to the cathedral and walking around in Italy. The video was also shot in black and white which was very interesting. These two videos really stuck out to me because they were both talking about reality while also trying to show 2 sides of the story.