Music Video: Common - Letter to the Free

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?
Common performs at Tribeca Talks: Common with Nelson George during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios on April 23, 2017 in New York City. 

2) What is the 13th Amendment of the American Constitution?
abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

3) What were the Black Codes?
The Black Codes, sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans (free blacks). The best known of them were passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages.

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?

5) Why was Ava DuVernay inspired to make the Netflix documentary 13th?
“It started as just an exploration of the prison industrial complex and the profit—prison for profit-punishment for profit. I was always disturbed and fascinated by and furious with what we were not talking about the fact that, you know multi-billion dollar companies were profiting off of black bodies and people from my community, in prison,”

6) Focusing on genre, what was the most significant time period for the rise in political hip hop?
in the late '80s and '90s that was truly reflective of a movement. 

7) Common talks about other current artists that have a political or protest element to their music. Who are they? Are there any other hip hop artists that you are aware of that have a strong political element to their work?
Big Daddy Kane
 Mo D, N.W.A 
 Kendrick Lamar.
Chance [the Rapper], 

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.

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).
The camera movement is quite slow throughout the music video. It shows how time is gradually passing by. Also slowing down the editing pace shows how meaningful the movement is. The camera does several rotations around the musicians to show how black people feel constantly trapped in america with the lack of freedom.

2) What is the significance of the constantly moving camera?
to show how the discrimination against black never stops- the ongoing struggle Black American have had to endure. Also the movements are are slow to show how to a long slow painful process to equality.

3) Why is the video in black and white?
The lack of colour can represent the dullness and tiresomeness of this injustice.


4) How is mise-en-scene used to construct meaning for the audience - prison setting, costume, props, lighting, actor placement?
The prison setting shows the place where the salves were sent and the lonilessness and bleakness of the place. The costume are barely visible and shown with a lack of importance to show how these people were ordinary. 

5) Focusing on the track, what are the key lyrics that suggest the political message of the song?
"Whips and chains become subliminal"
Since slave days separating, fathers from children
Prison is a business, America's the company

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 represents the infinite thing about blackness and blackness can't be defined 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.
Jim Crow


8) How can Gilroy's idea of black diasporic identity be applied to Common's Letter to the Free?
The lack of knowing where the belong in western society and not feeling accepted.

9) What other theories of race and ethnicity can be applied to this video? E.g. Hall, Rose or Dyson.
Rose suggesting how hip hop gives a insight to black people and their struggle.

10) What current events in America and worldwide are referenced in the song and video?
On May 25, 2020, the death of George Floyd, an African-American man, occurred in Powderhorn, a neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States