How are narrative techniques employed in Joyner Lucas's video Ross Capicchioni?
Joyner Lucas' music video Ross Capicchioni "depicts the chilling chain of events leading up to Capicchioni’s near fatal shooting" wrote HipHopDX. This music video is rapper Joyner Lucas' outside perspective on a true story from March 2007, when a young Detroit male, Ross Capicchioni, was shot multiple times as a victim of gang initiation. The video was released on May 20th 2015 and currently has over 5 million views on YouTube and 3.3 million views on Spotify. Signed onto Atlantic Records, the young Massachusetts songwriter has released four mix tapes and is taking the US Hip Hop scene by storm. Joyner gained national attention when he appeared on the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher, being the first artist to be moved from the web platform of the show to the televised syndication. From the age of 7, Joyner had been writing lyrics, and at 10 years old he recorded his first track at a local studio. In terms of the songs typicality in relation to his other tracks, 'Ross Capicchioni' follows the artists heavy narrative approach and hard hitting story line. For example, tracks such as 'I'm Sorry' and 'Keep it 100', in which he talks about a suicide case, in almost all of Joyner's music video's a clear and immersive narrative is explored. In terms of 'Ross Capicchioni', the music video perfectly correlates to the lyrics, this coincides with Goodwin's theory of music videos. Joyner Lucas, when interviewed by ThisIs50, on his YouTube channel, said that the story 'inspired him' and he couldn't believe that he had survived it, then going on to say how he had to write a song about it and 'he respected him'.
The music video follows an interesting structure, in which we find ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist - this is created through a 1st person technique - and then half way through, we see it through the antagonist's perspective. So, in a sense we are engaging with a linear narrative but from two perspectives, similar to a multi-strand narrative. This slight confusion ensures the audience is captivated and immersed in the lyrics of the song, and visuals of the video. Prior to the start of the main narrative, a few seconds of footage is shown to the audience, seemingly of the protagonist bleeding out on the ground, at the end of the video this is also shown, thus displaying elements of a circular narrative. So, what makes this music video particularly captivating is it's ability to use various different narrative structures whilst still maintaining a fluid and mesmeric music video. 
The video begins, as Bulgarian theorist Tzvetan Todorov suggests, in a state of equilibrium through which life is normal and happy; this state of normality is disrupted by the introduction of the antagonist. However, interestingly this music video plays with this traditional idea of an antagonist, as the protagonist perceives him to be his friend, there is no conflict between them to return to a state of equilibrium until the end. This idea of character roles is definitely relative to this music video, as the protagonist at the beginning, is new to the area and is looking for friends and acceptance, the antagonist offers this friendship, helping him and defending him against bullies within the school, but then eventually betraying him and shooting him. Following the protagonist through his first day at school, the audience becomes familiar to him, and gains an emotional attachment to the character. This is amplified by the lyrics, as the camerawork allows us to see from his perspective, but Joyner carefully wrote the lyrics to depict the character's thoughts and emotions. This style of POV shot's is typical of Joyner's music videos, as seen in 'Keep it 100' which follows the story of a $100 bill in a night out.
Roland
Barthes describes a text as "a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of
signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by
several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main
one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are
indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural
text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of
language...". This description perfectly correlates with this music video, as it explores multiple narrative structures, this idea of 'several entrances' is explored within 'Ross Capicchioni' as there are two given perspectives and two individual staring points. Barthes believed in narrative codes that should be integrated within a media text, firstly I will explore the enigma code, this is an idea that major puzzles should be set up for the audience too unravel and work out. The purpose of this being to engage the audience into the narrative storyline of the text, in this case the music video. This code is explored within Joyner Lucas' video as at the very beginning we see a POV shot of someone on the floor bleeding out, this instantly gets the audience to ask questions and ponder as too what may have happened. Secondly, is the action code, or proairectic code, which explores this idea of complex actions being 'readable' through tiny details, for example with this music video we see the protagonist get on his skateboard, then see him in school, we assume he skated to school. The use of this is it removes dull and irrelevant scenes from the storyline and leaves the audience to think and fill in the blanks, further engaging them. The third code, is the semic code, this is about the connotations the audience infers from characters and their actions. For example, in reference to this music video, we see the antagonist early on with a gang of mates, wearing chains and baggy clothes - stereotypical signifiers of gang culture and violence. This allows the audience to create judgement on characters and, relating back to the enigma code, predict the puzzle that occurred prior.
One inter textual reference to his other work, is the Joyner Lucas always tends to feature in the music video, as displayed in videos such as 'Happy Birthday' and 'Winter Blues'. This is significant as it raises a brand identity for the artist and the audience become used to his image, role and persona thus advancing his popularity and subsequently his sales. In relation to what influences I can take from this music video, there are numerous, for example the use of multiple narrative structures formulating together to indulge, captivate and immerse the audience into the message and lyrics of the song. This idea of a circular narrative is defiantly something I would like to explore, especially seeing as my music video is around love, I believe it could integrate nicely. Furthermore, the narrative technique of multiple strands is intriguing as it allows two different perspective's, thus making a more complex narrative and video. In addition, by using multi strand narratives you can explore Levis Strauss' theory of binary opposites and incorporate that into my video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO_v2sXm-f4 - Ross Capicchioni by Joyner Lucas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz38zUk6j2o - Interview
Written by Thor Forster
