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Videos that challenge some R&B conventions

Some R&B music videos actually challenge some conventions to create a particular message. One of those music videos is The Boys bu Nicki Minaj and Cassie. 



The music video includes R&B and Rap. This video conveys R&B representations about gender and also how women and men are portrayed along side ethnicity and age. The music video tries to show the two female characters as powerful and superior to males, this challenges some R&B music conventions as it is typically females that are inferior to men and not the other way around. 

The costumes that have been chosen for this music video do not challenge R&B conventions as the two females are wearing very revealing and attractive clothing throughout the video, such as bathing suits, to appeal to the males and the music video is typically seen through a male gaze.  The song isn’t a typical R&B song about women it’s the other way round, where two young women are speaking about men who aren’t really men, they are just boys who are immature in their ways of thinking about women. 

The colour scheme is unusual for an R&B music video, it's also unusual for a rap music video as it is so pink and bright. The colours are very stereotypically feminine. The colour scheme also wants to reinforce a certain idea about women and their fascination with bright colours. The shot that is about 1 minute in, is a quick flash of Nicki Minaj before going into the next shot below, a close up. This shot shows here looking glammed up, hair and make up done. Bright vibrant hair colour to show her in a very feminine and almost girly light. The main colour is still pink as well as lilac and blue and continuously indicating the girly side and also appealing to females as the music video is colourful and bright. Nicki Minaj stands out from the back ground. Her facial expression shows attitude and therefore some sort of power and superiority which breaks conventions and makes the female characters the superior ones.

In the last shots of the music video, Cassie is seen wearing a dark blue suit. The colour of the suit is also very manly and breaks from the bright colour of the music video. This is breaking conventions as she is seen in a superior and powerful light, almost equal to men. However she is not wearing anything underneath to appeal to men and still play with some conventions. Cassie is also seen holding a lot of money which follows some conventions of R&B as wealth is continuously seen in R&B music videos.