Beez In The Trap - Nicki Minaj Ft Two Chainz Analysis

This is a song by two American rap artists and would fit into the genre of hip-hop. In the music video for this song they use the genre characteristics extensively to their benefit in order to get people to watch it and attract a wide ranging audience. It starts of with a view of the main singer Nicki Minaj and all throughout the beginning sequence you see lots of close-ups on mostly her face to show her power and importance. The director has also chosen to put crowds of dancers enjoying themselves in the video (mostly girls) to attract their target audience which would be young men and allowed the artist to show expensive things to increase their look of power and importance for example in the video above you can see Nicki Minaj fanning herself with money and then it goes to a shot of Two Chainz who is wearing two gold chains around his neck and a ferrari hat as both of these things signify wealth, making the audience in awe of them.


During the whole of the video both artists are lip syncing to all the lyrics to show that this is a music video and not just a short film. It also shows the audience that this is their song because they are the only ones that know the lyrics out of all the other actors in the video and further increases this idea of them being the most important people in the video. Besides from this there is very little connection apart from when she says (about half way through the song) 'I beez in the trap' because at this point you see her behind some barbed wire as if she is trapped away from us and untouchable, whilst the screen keeps flashing back to her in the club with the knuckle dusters that say Beez and Trap as you can see in the picture above. Another part that does something similar to this is when Two Chainz comes in and says his name, where at this point in the video his name is printed onto the screen to further enforce his presence in the song and to remind people of his star image.

There are lots of shots during the video that are close-ups on Nicki Minaj as she is the main character and most important and she is also wearing lots of bright colours with pink lipstick. As Nicki Minaj is commonly known for her love of the colour pink (naming her first album 'Pink Friday' and by people calling her the 'black barbie') she uses this to her benefit during the video so you know who it is and she also chooses pretty outrageous outfits which is hugely seen in this video with her leopard print all-in-one and her green hair! 

There is also a lot of voyeurism in this video and the exploitation of the female body is widely used. To start with you see the main artist sitting in a coral leotard and thats it and then when she does have a outfit change she wears even less clothing as she is now wearing a bikini. It then goes to a scene in a club which appears to be only filled with women and the camera very much focus' on their legs, bums etc. Then the final point I'm going to talk about is when Two Chainz comes in and although Nicki Minaj is the main artist she appears to be dancing for him in quite a provocative manner with her back to the camera, making her seem less important than him and that he has quite a lot of control in the 'relationship'.