Pre production planning

Initial brief interpretation, ideas and research 

For my coursework, I will need to create a new original artist including persona and themes. This artist will need to appeal to a mainstream 16-25 year old audience to fit the brief. I will also have two other tasks, to both create a new original magazine featuring my created artist on a front cover and double page spread and a music video using my created artist and an already existing song. The song will need to fit the genre and themes of my artist along with not having any pre existing official videos as per the brief.

My idea of an original artist is a young rapper who is newly mainstream with an underground upcoming. They will be a satire on the recent trend of rappers getting endorsements from many different medias/brands, mainly inspired from popular rapper Travis Scotts recent collaborations with both McDonald and Fortnite. My independent artists sponsor will be Chicken Cottage. The persona of my artist will be heavily cantered around over the top endorsements of the brand, playing off the newer meme culture in mainstream rap seen in artists like Ugly God and Mario Judah. 

Out of the production companies listen on the brief Atlantic records fits my artist the best. Atlantic records was started in the late 1940's . It quickly became one of the biggest and most important record companies in America getting a distribution deal with large company Stax. In 1967 the label was bought by warner brothers and in 2004 it was merged with its sister label Elektra to become Atlantic records group. The label started out mostly featuring Jazz, RnB and soul music through the 50s and early 60s with artists like Ruth Brown until it was bought by warner brothers where it expanded into rock and pop, beginning to represent huge artists like led zeppelin. In recent years the label has become very well known for hip-hop, representing a large  portion of mainstream hip-hop artists today. The label and its artists are constantly gathering major success, the most recent big release being "leave the door open" a soul/RnB single featuring Bruno Mars. In terms of recent successful hip-hop releases "oppa stoppa" a single by rapper YBN Nhamir recently went viral across social media making it a large commercial success which links perfectly to both my original artist and the target audience of the brief as social media is a huge part of 16-25 mainstream music. 

Summary of artist and music video plan

My artist will be called lilcottheravedon. The name is intentionally over the top as a satire however still fits the brief target audience as names similar have been a large part of the recent wave of rap which my artist is inspired by. 

My artists genre will be trap, the most popular genre of rap/hip-hop at the moment. His persona will also be inspired by meme rap/internet rap. This sub genre allows room for less serious topics and mannerisms while fitting the brief. 

My artists will be a newly mainstream artists. Blowing up from the underground and soundcloud scene due to internet viral songs and his persona. His past would be from the UK Rave scene and his themes explore both growing up poor and his new life, including his chicken cottage endorsement. 

The most similar artist to mine from my chosen production company, Atlantic records, is rapper Mario Judah. Mario Judah is also a trap artist playing a satirical character heavily influenced by meme and internet culture, he was an artist that blew up through social media buzz and viral trends. 

For song choice i want to use a song by trap artist Travis Scott, as his actions were a big inspiration for the gimmick of my original artist. I decided to use the recently released remix of his hit song "goosebumps" by artists HMVE. This song is perfect for the brief and my artist, it is a trap song remixed with an DnB sound which fits my artists mainstream genre and biography as DnB is a huge part of rave culture and is featured in popular meme culture, it also has over 160 million streams on spotify alone, easily classifying it as a mainstream song.  

The videos main narrative will be an endorsement for chicken cottage, featuring the main artist searching for a chicken cottage meal . The video will feature typical conventions of a trap video, such as the costume being street clothing and upbeat dancing along with urban locations. However the conventions will be averted with the mannerisms of the main character as instead of seeking a girl or some money he is seeking chicken cottage, and the typical actions of people in trap videos will be done severely over the top due to the satirical nature of the artist. 

Magazine article extract

......Growing up in the rough streets of south London lilcotttheravedon often found himself involved with underground street raves, surrounded by a culture of music and talent he found himself attempting freestyles with people he knew there. Influenced by the heavy dance music and massive wave of underground sounding trap becoming popular in America at the time he began developing his style and flows as he continued to freestyle for fun at big events. Eventually people began to recognise his talents and he entered into rap battles, even getting recognised by the liked of legendary UK artist devilman, however lilcotts tendency to "never take himself seriously" resulted in him not trying to progress any career in music at the time "it was just a hobby for me, for fun". His opinions on music changed when one of his friends filmed and released his legendary Chicken Cottage freestyle, where he drops a satirical jokey verse over a lil-uzi-vert beat. This freestyle along with the location and vibe of his verse propelled him to social media stardom, becoming a meme on both Tik-Tok and Instagram. Deciding to capitalise off this hype he released "Chicken Cottage where my heart is" an official version of the viral freestyle "fresh drip freestyle" the former peaking at number 97 on billboards hot 100. We asked him about the night that launched his career "we were just at the chicken cottage after a rave and someone slapped on a beat. I thought let me do my thing and my friend put it on insta and it went up from there" when asked for his comment on taking advantage of the buzz he said "people are sick of these rappers taking themselves too serious, like my guy you just make good music you aren't the second coming of Jesus relax. I thought i'd play the persona, give people good entertainment you get me"