Analysis: Eminem- No Love ft. Lil Wayne

The following music video I have chosen to analyse is ‘No Love’ by Eminem featuring Lil Wayne. The main narrative of the video is of a young boy being bullied but is being throughout inspired to fight back by Eminem and Lil Wayne, in a way acting as mentors.

The first 30 seconds of the video starts with transitions of different clips including;  a boy being hit with dodge balls by three older boys, being pushed around by them afterwards in a locker room and this all during the start. There are also shots of posters in the boy’s bedroom of Eminem and Lil Wayne, one of which is a promotional poster for the film ‘8 Mile’ (which Eminem starred in). This is to start off the video with an immediate scenario straight away, to show that the video obviously has a theme of bullying and inspiration. The posters are to establish the fact that these are the artists in this music video and that it seems that the boy being bullied is a fan of their music. It could also show that both the artist face similar hardship, possibly bullying or in relation to this.

Lil Wayne then starts to sing his part of the song, singing in front of a dark and smoky background- this being the centre of the performance in the video, there are than transitions with clips of the boy being bullied and listening to music in between. The dark background portrays feelings of negativity and darkness, this is being emphasised by Lil Wayne’s lyrics;

• ‘Throw dirt on me, and grow a wildflower’- That the way and manner he acts now is due to the dirt thrown on him, the troubles he faced, he still grew and continues on his path, but with struggles.
• ‘You can keep knocking, but won’t knock me down’- Detailing the manner where there are many points at which they try to break him down, keeping getting at him, keep knocking, but he wont fall down or back down, but wont knock me down.

Eminem comes out the car and enters a studio, which is seen in the upcoming shots.
After this the boy is in the toilet and there is another bullying scene, than Lil Wayne finishes his part of the song and Eminem steps in, whilst this there seems to be projection of images, showing images of a jungle gym, monkey bars, fences and dark clouds. These images could represent the school life and also playgrounds, this could be to represent the places where the boy could get bullied and the clouds showing to be the dark days and bad moments of the child life being another sign of negativity.
From here onwards things change, the boy and his ways are going to change, although the imagery is showing else wise.
The next scene is where the boy comes up and is walking down in the school after listening to some music, the previous day. The lyrics say else wise such as;

‘You show me nothing but hate, you ran me into the ground, but what comes around goes around’

‘You get no love’

 ‘You can never break my stride’- This is the key simplifier in the video on this part, the visuals are the boy walking down in the school, where the bullies approach him, this is where the inspiration and rebelling starts.

From here where Eminem raps', the slideshow pictures change, you can see sunshine, dark pictures are not their anymore, sunshine and normal lighter clouds. The boy is approached, the 3 bullies come across while he is on his stride. There is an aggressive tone and harsh rapping of the lyrics, these combined with the serious look on the boys face imply that he is going to do something about the current state of the  bullying but, not on his won with the help of both rappers, motivating him with the music and inspiring him.
After this is where he stands up to the bullies proving the previous statement, although strangely there are three different endings, Eminem finishes his rap and the chorus comes in, with no love. In the first ending, the boy punches one of the bullies, trying to escape but gets caught by another guy. Another ending shows the boy just beating all of them up, with some clever editing involved during this editing section, there are same wave forms shown from the punches and does not get hurt. The last one, he is simply going away, walking away from the opportunity of fighting. This is clever and something not seen in other videos or even movies for that fact. Although these 3 could be different view expressed, could even be there fro the audience to guess which one actually happens but at the end of the day it could simply be because usually when yous tick up to bullies you have to face them physically but it could be that the rappers do not want to send a message that fighting  is the right way and walking away is just the positive option.
In the end you can see many artist shown in the end finishing off the chorus, this could be that other artists like the ones shown, faced issues of bullying and overcame this issue, with inspirational figures and music. Also with the various endings , these clips may act as if the rappers are almost the guardians for the boy and looking over him, being that inspirational figure to stand up for himself, overall inspiring him to do something, partially through the music.
Lil Wayne in his parts of the songs portrays the part of what has happened, how the boy is and what has happened, while Eminem shows the upbringing and the spirit/inspiration bought towards the boy getting up and fighting for himself.