Textual analysis of my hump - Black Eyed Peas

Released - November 14th 2005
Song- My Humps
Signed to - Ruthless records

Black eyed peas My hump has one distinctive narrative which we can mainly gather from the lyrics this being that the men are fighting over the women (fergie) and trying to buy her lots of nice gifts which we gather from the use of the mise-en-scene eg louis vuitton bags and the nice braclets that fergie is wearing this combined with the lyrics she uses eg 'they buy me all these ice's' clear reference to the men buying her gifts in order to impress her. This also hints at the lifestyle which they are now living because for in order for the men to be able to buy fergie all these gifts they must have alot of money and this is again reflected in the mise-en-scene with the cars that are shown.

The My Humps music video uses many stereotypical features of a hip-hop music video. For example the mise-en-scene we see alot of jewellery,expensive clothing,cars this is typical of a hip-hop video. Also the mise-en-scene is used in order to capture the attention of the audience.For example the represntation of woemn from the mise-en-scene which fergie is wearing is aiming towards capturing male attention and feeding the male gaze. Feminists would argue that this is helping to prove the music video to be patriarchal as fergie is dressing provocativly in order to try and please men however there are alternative readings in to her provocative dressing. An exmaple would be post feminists they would argue that she is dressing like that for herself and because she wants to also they would combine the lyrics that she says for example ' i keep saying no but they keep giving' as to show that she in fact has control over the men and not the other way around as they keep buying her stuff not the other way around.The target audience to the My humps video is likely to be 16+ and men due to the use of the male gaze which is implemented through out the whole of the music video.

The music video itself doesnt go against any stereotypical conventions. However the lyrics with in the song itself do convey some challenging of stereotypical conventions. For example in most hip- hop videos you wouldnt hear men talking about how they are always buying a women something as they want to portray that women chase them because of the lifestyle they have. However in this hip-hop video willam and taboo are talking about how fergie got them spending all there money on her which in a way goes against the stereotypical theme. Also some of the mise-en-scene is unstereotypical for example the location where the video has been shot it looks like an empty room. This is not typical of a hip-hop video as it is usually shot outside with alot going on in the background for example at a beach or on a street. This is another way in which the black eyed peas have managed to go against a stereotypical convention.