Analysing a Music Video

I decided to analyse a music video using Andrew Goodwin's theory to get a better understanding of the theory and see how it can be put into work.
I have decided to use Childish Gambino's song 'Bonfire'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL1B_r9nC9k&list=PLMgfH76iATNSe_vWUUnavP-YIiiWuhu8U

This particular music video is a narrative based video and has a very clever twist towards the end of it when Childish Gambino (The main actor in the video) discovers that he is already dead. The music video is set in a forest and costumes are important in the video as Gambino is shown in the darker colors reflecting to how he is dead at the end of the video.

First of all i wanted to look at the genre characteristics  Although Gambino is wearing a form of camp uniform in the video he still adds his own style to it by wearing his preferred white Adidas trainers and socks. However apart from this the music video is not really typical of a rap video.

Secondly I decided to look at the video relating to the lyrics:
Again i had difficulties to find any real links between the lyrics and the music video apart from the chorus. Which lyrics are 'Its a bonfire, turn the lights out' where the lyrics are relevant to the bonfire which we can see in the music video.

I then looked at the demands of the record label which may have influenced the music video. Childish Gambino's record label is Glassnote Entertainment. As this isn't a very big brand i don't think they really had a massive impact on what Gambino could or couldn't do in this video. As we see at the start where Gambino is vomiting his blood, i believe there weren't really any standards set by the record label as this is not very tasteful to say the least! I believable that the record label wanted to get Gambino in the video as in all other of his videos he plays the main role.

Looking at in-textual references also did not bring up anything to interesting. There are not any links to another other forms of media which i could be able to relate this music video to. However i think that the videos narrative theme is quite interesting, we see no performance in this music video which for a rap artist is a bit unusual. I think Gambino likes to make his videos stand out a bit from the normality of male rap videos consisting of constant use of the male gaze. This video is a bit more friendly to female viewers but is still more aimed at males due to its dangerous nature of people looking vulnerable when the knifes are out and also the first few shots where Gambino vomits his blood.