Dream – Music Video By Dizzee Rascal Enrika Kabir 12. 4

Background information Dizzee Rascal is a rapper from London, UK, is a hip-hop artists considered the pioneer of Grime and the ability to incorporate UK Garage and heavy basslines in his songs. The song ‘Dream’ from the album ‘Showtime’ was on the charts in 2004 for 8 weeks on the top 25 and peaking in the charts at the 14th position.

1950s Britain The pianist in the video, I believe represents the type of people in power at the time, white people, they fit the stereotype as they sit upright and have a stereotypical middle class hairdo, they’re also shown to be the biggest character on screen, showing her prominence in power. The 1950s were the year when most of the immigration happened from countries like the Caribbean and South Asia to Britain. Dizzie Rascal is trying to compare “old” society to current society, there’s a scene of police brutality happening with puppets, he’s saying that these cannot be overlooked in current society as it still happens.

Anti-social Behaviour Dizzie is wearing stereotypical “black young male” clothes, a tracksuit with a hoodie, he raps multiple lyrics that reinforce this character, eg. reckless. There was a ban on hoodies in a shopping mall called Blue Water, from which the shopping mall even benefitted, as their visitors went up as there were no more ‘intimidating’ youths, however Dizzie also reinforces his hard work and willingness to reach his dreams, as soon as he does so, the rest of the puppets follow his example and pick up hobbies such as football and dance and are shown to not be intimidating or destructive, using Dizzie as a role model, so he feels it is his duty to guide these youths towards their dreams.

Muffin and Captain Sensible Muffin the Mule was a children’s show aired in the 50s, the music video’s theme is shown to be childlike but they issues shown and mentioned are something that society’s struggles to deal with to this day, the fact Dizzie addresses his audience as children may imply for them to listen to a story he has to say. He samples a song called ‘Happy Talk’ by Captain Sensible, and mentions how this is ‘too sensible’ for him but he’s willing to take the risk of sounding cheesy if that can fix our society and get a broader audience to listen to him as many people would have recognised the song he sampled and it might bring them nostalgia.