Music Genre Research|Rap|Eminem - "Toy Soldiers"

When the kid opens up the book you see Eminem wearing trackies, hoodie, and a top which are all way to big for him. This immediately tells the audience straight away that this music is the genre known as rap. It does this by the use of stereotypes. When we think of rap we think of gangsters, when we think of gangsters we think typically of the clothes Eminem is wearing in this clip.
This shows the history of rap because it came from the "hood" of America and this is what they generally, and stereotypically, wear on a day to day basis.

You next see blood all over Eminem's shirt, then cuts to a shot of someone being chestpumped. This brings up the question of "did Eminem violently hurt this guy?"
Throughout the history of rap a rapper would rap about painful experiences within their life and often promote violence. This part of the video shows violence through the use of blood on Eminems shirt, and if you put one and one together, you hazard a guess that the blood is from the guy led on the bed. This suggests to the audience that they probably had a violent fight, and also promotes violence.

When Eminem is in his office a security guy walks in and hands him a bulletproof vest. It then cuts to a newspaper headline which reads "Rap rivalries get dangerous". This then makes the audience think that Eminem is expecting to get shot at some point in his life.
This brings back the history of rappers being involved in gangs and killing people just because they don't like another person. Which is also promoting violence again.

This is a clip which shows Eminem with his gang. This shows the history of rappers generally belonging to a gang. Also you notice that Eminem is wearing a camo styled shirt. This gives the audience the idea that Eminem is preparing for a war, possibly a gang war. Again this promotes violence.

This clips stands out from every clip within the music video. You see a guy get shot from a car window. This is referring to the historical death of Tupac which, arguably, is the most known death of all rappers.
Tupac was shot dead on September 13th, 1996. This killer was unknown but believed to be someone from Biggie's crew. Biggie was another rapper at the time, and Tupacs rival. This shows the historical stereotype of rappers and their crews constantly being violent and creating gang wars. You see the reference to the unknowing of who killed Tupac in this clip by the fact you cannot see who is shooting the guns in the car.
Within Rap history, this is the most known death of all time because of the violence that was arousing between East and West Coast America before and after the death of Tupac.

By Lewis Finney