Planning and Research

Reggae

''Reggaeton lyrics tend to be derived more from hip hop than dancehall. Like hip hop, reggaeton has caused some controversy, albeit less, due to alleged exploitation of women,^[7] and to a lesser extent, explicit and violent lyrics. Further controversy surrounds perreo, a dance with explicit sexual overtones which is performed to reggaeton music. Perreo was the subject of a national controversy in Puerto Rico as reggaeton music and the predominantly lower class culture it derived from, became more popular and widely available.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton

During the planning and research stage, we all agreed to look at different CD covers of reggae/hip hop artists/bands. I've looked at composition, camera angles and edits an have found that reggae CD covers use a lot of; bright colours, females posing seductively and wearing revealing clothing. This image reflects the explicit lyrics about male sexual desires and reinforces how women are mainly used and seen as sexual objects. The bright colours used are to represent the colours of reggae culture; Jamaica.

Looking at these images, I believe they're inappropriate in regards to the lyrics of Princess Landa's song - which is significantly about women independence. However, the idea of using colours such as; green, red and yellow would target an Afro-Caribbean audience. Overall, our target audience are males and females;16-25 year olds and in order to achieve this, bright colours for the CD front cover would be used to attract our target audience.

Here are some examples of famous Reggae CD covers I looked at:

Dancehall

Dancehall is a popular and well known genre in Jamaica. It's a more sparse version of reggae and it also speaks on the subject of; politics and religion but in an indirectly manner; which is associated with the Rastafarian movement (which dominated most of the 1970's). Dancehall has been critized from international organisations and individuals for its violent and anti-homosexual lyrics.

'In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall (or "ragga") becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. In the mid-1990s with the rise of dancehall BoboShanti artists such as Sizzla and Capleton, there developed a very strong connection between dancehall and Rastafarian.'