Research 5 - Target Audience

We surveyed our target audience to find out, in short, who our target audience actually are.

We asked the following questions on many rap and hip hop forums:

1. Describe your taste in clothing? What do you like to wear?

2. Name your top ten favorite hip hop artists?

3. What areas/locations do you mainly associate with hip hop? 

4. Is location (where an artist is from) important to you? Why or why not?

5. Is an artists image important to you? Why or why not?

6. Do you like an artist that takes them self very seriously, or the opposite? Why or why not?

7. In your own view, what does an artist need to do to get noticed by you?

8. What are your interests/Hobbies other than hip hop?



We found these results:

1. The majority said they like to wear, dark clothing. Mostly jeans, normally baggy or slim fit (not skinny), T-shirts or causal shirts and zip up hoodies. Mostly dark colours, blues, blacks, greys or whites.

2. The majority listed their favourite existing rappers as; Nas, 2pac, Madlib, Milo, Elzhi, Del The Funky Homosapien, Black Thought, Common, MF DOOM, Big L, Biggie smalls and more of that 'type' of rap...

3. The Majority associated New York, L.A, London and other urban city's with hip hop. We also found that those who preferred underground/alternative hip hop, also listed Canada as an area that they would associated with hip hop.

4. Some people said they don't mind location at all, where as some said they don't mind, but their accent may be a problem for them.

5. The majority considered image to be important when it comes to first impressions and self promotion, but they said that if their music is good, most would be willing to overlook any image.

6. The majority stated that it was dependent on the kind of music they made. For example, artists who make dark or political music would be expected to take themselves seriously. Where as other artists can take themselves less seriously, depending on the themes of their music.

7. Most people simply stated "make good music". They said that music comes first. They also need to make a name for themselves. Featuring in other peoples songs, participating in rap battles, release free mix-tapes to get 'hype'.

8. The majority said they enjoyed 'hanging out with friends', playing sports, video games and indoor 'pub' games such as darts and pool.

All of these answers should be taken into great consideration when promoting our artist.

Research 4 - Location

Locations should be urban and 'gritty'. But at the same time, our hip hop duo is more of an 'upbeat' rapper/producer duo, so lighting will be important to avoid making the video feel gloomy and almost depressing. Upbeat music will also help us avoid this..

For example, here we see a mid shot of Soul Khan with a city scape in the background. The picture is in black and white, and Soul' isn't smiling. The whole picture is very serious, something we may want to avoid.

This however, would be a more suitable background for our artist:

It is far more colourful, yet it still maintains the urban 'feel'. It looks allot less serious, but a graffiti background such as this will keep the hip hop theme clear in certain shots.

Research 3 - Rap Battles

Many hip hop artists have made a name for themselves in the music industry, by featuring in 'rap battle' competitions.
It gives them a chance to show off their lyricism and wordplay against another rapper. And obviously winning them often with give them a very good reputation.
In every rap battle, when the two contestants are introduced, information about them is given, such as;
Where they are from, how many battles they won and lost and where you can find their music.
Whilst this information is displayed, one of their songs that best represents them as an artist and their musical style is played in the background, to further support the introduction and give the audience a clear idea of what the artist 'is all about'.

In the video above we can see the rapper Soul Khan compete and win in a rapper battle. Soul Khan became famous for competing in rap battles, so for our project, showing some clips of our artist competing in a rap battle will definitely help build an audience and promote his 'skills' as a rapper.

Research 2

Here we can see the rapper and producer known as 'Moka Only' in his home 'studio' giving an interview
As we can see, the place is pretty disorganized and he seems comfortable with his surroundings
The place looks very grungy and 'chill', but you can tell the place gets it's use!

We should try to recreate an area like this for our artists to be interviewed in when they are creating music.

Research

We are going to be making a music promotional video for an underground hip hop Rapper and Producer Duo
Here we can see a music video for an alternative hip hop artist known as Moka Only with his producer known as Factor

This will be one of our main influences for music videos.