Planning - Lyrics Analysis

Coolio the artist starts to talk about "walk[ing] through the shadow of death" in the first line this connotes biblical imagery since it is a reference to the popular bible chapter of psalms 23. It can be theorised that his life is always in danger and he sees death all around him yet he fears nothing since he believes that God is on this side.

The artist states that he "never crossed a man that didn't deserve it... or you and your homies might be lined in chalk" this suggest that he knows that he has committed heinous crimes and is ready to atone for them but he believes that those people had it coming. The "lined in chalk" could be a reference to a murder scene where the police usually outline the corpses with calk so he could be suggesting that if you rub him the wrong way you end up dead.  

The chorus features repetition of the phrase "living in the gangsters's paradise", this shows that he is currently living the dream. Despite this the paradise he is living is only filled with gangsters and in the gangsta's world only the strongest survive and the weak perish.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I take a look at my life and realize there's nothin' left
Cause I've been blasting and laughing so long,
That even my mama thinks that my mind is gone
But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it
Me be treated like a punk you know that's unheard of
You better watch how you're talking and where you're walking
Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
I really hate to trip but I gotta loc
As they croak, I see myself in the pistol smoke, fool
I'm the kinda G the little homies wanna be like
On my knees in the night saying prayers in the streetlight

Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise

Look at the situation they got me facin'
I can't live a normal life, I was raised by the streets
So I gotta be down with the hood team
Too much television watching got me chasing dreams
I'm an educated fool with money on my mind
Got my 10 in my hand and a gleam in my eye
I'm a loc'd out gangsta set trippin' banger
And my homies is down so don't arouse my anger, fool
Death ain't nothing but a heartbeat away,
I'm living life, do or die, what can I say
I'm 23 now, but will I live to see 24
The way things are going I don't know

Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the ones we hurt are you and me

Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise

Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's running, but half of them ain't looking
What's going on in the kitchen, but I don't know what's cookin'
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me
I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool

Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Been spending most their lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spending most our lives, living in the gangsta's paradise

Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the one's we hurt are you and me
Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the one's we hurt are you and me
[Fade out]

Planning - Survey Monkey (Responses / Results)

After we posted our survey we started to gather useful data from our results that we got. This will allow us to be able to adapt the music video to the way we can reach our target audience. 

From our first question we found that 73% (rounded up) of the audience is male. This means that we would need to add in more elements that will attract the majority of our audience. We can do this by adding elements that male audiences like such as violence and sexual objectification. 

We then asked for the audiences age. Here we found that the majority of our audience was between 14 and 19. There were a few younger than 13 and the rest were older than 20. Focusing on one specific group gives us as a better perspective to what target audience area we gather the most information for. In this case, we will be able to add in things a teenager would like to see in the music video.

We had the make sure that the responses that we asked are valid for the type of genre that we were creating. Most of the respondents liked Rap music. This benefits us as we are looking to create a Rap music video also ourselves - people within target audience will be more likely attracted to it.

54.5 % of the people we asked said that they watch their music videos on the internet. We would need to put our music video on a website like youtube to meet the wider audience that may not watch TV anymore.

We then asked them what they enjoy seeing in music videos. When we are planning our music video we would be able to know the different concepts and things that we need to add onto our video. From our research, we have a variety of different responses that people have chosen and one of the most popular was girls and the artist. This means that we can try to incorporate this ideas into our music video.

The rest of these results will be used in a similar way. 

Furthermore, our research exhibits that having a narrative story is popular amongst are survey respondents. This reinforces our intention top carry on with a narrative story.

By the most popular answer to this question is the lyrics, it is important to emphasise them by coinciding the lyrics to what is happening in the music video.

Due to this response, we will take into consideration that we make sure that we are dressed current in terms of teenagers (target audience) today.

This response provides evidence of what type of clothes are target audience likes to see and we should make sure that we wear clothes from similar shops such as Footasylm.

The final question, offers us the information of what are respondents like to do. This information will allow us to understand what the target audience likes.

Planning - Promoting The Survey Through Twitter

The is a screenshot of the twitter post that Aaron posted to help get more people to do the survey. This helps us attract more potential audience and gives us the information on how we can attract these people.

Since twitter is a popular social media service it allows us to target our audience. More teenagers use social media site and putting our surveys there will also help attract teenagers to do the survey.

Planning - Survey Monkey (Questions)

We went onto a website called survey monkey and created a questionnaire. This question will allow us to be able to get audience input into the production of our music video. The questions that we asked reflect back to our target audience and how there life could be impacted by the music video. Here we wanted to try and relate to the audience as much as possible by asking about where they show and what types of musics they listen to.

The first three questions are basic and general. They help us as a music production company to be able to sort out the responses in different categories. With the male and female question we can see how different genders reflect on the music video idea and they social life. Again this is the same for the participants age.

They third question just helps us know what types of music the audience listens to. This will then help us know if the survey is a valid response for a rap music video.

As stated before questions four and onwards, it asks more specific questions that will help us improve the production of our film. Questions like "what do you enjoy seeing in a music video?" helps us implement these idea into our film so it can relate directly to our audience. This will be done for all the questions.

We hope to get a reasonable sample that we can use to help figure out the majorities opinion.

LINK - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2KWYDDL