Kid Cudi “Day and Nite” is modern hip-hop music video that takes reference to 90’s stoner movies with British pop culture styling. Kid Cudi has personified him self as the “lovable stoner” in terms of P.R and this video highlights his character in the public eye. It was directed by French direct So-ME who also directed the popular D.A.N.C.E video by Justice
The video is set in a typical British corner shop with a title that references the name of the song, it combines both performance and narrative and follows Kid Cudi as he works a late shift in a corner shop after smoking narcotics in the back room, during the night Kid Cudi’s hallucinations begin to take form.
As the video begins we are introduced to comedic (possibly improvised) dialogue in which the store manager is shouting at Kid Cudi, the dialogue pokes fun at the popular media confusion of the pronunciation of Kid Cudi’s name; the store manager calls him “boodi” instead of “buddy” because when Kid Cudi first emerged as an artist people referred to him as “coodi” instead of “cuddy”
Once the music begins we see Cudi retreat into the store staff room and reemerge one clip later coughing up smoke to highlight the fact that he had been taking drugs, the consumption of low grade to high grade narcotics are a popular convention of many hip hop videos and opening the video in this way highlights what kind of image Cudi is trying to portray and helps you to understand what kind of video this is.
As well as following the narrative in the store we also see his performance in front of soap detergent boxes called “Cudi Soap Flakes” decorated in the style of “Cillit Bang” cleaning product which is an instantly recognizable reference and brand because the Cillit Bang commercials were very popular close to the time of release of this music video
Throughout the video we also get shots of hallucinated scantily clad women dancing around suggestively, this is a reoccurring visual representation of women in music videos and a classic convention of hip hop music videos.
The video uses a lot of invisible editing but many of the clips are put together in time with the music, the color palette of video matches the upbeat tempo of the song with yellows reds oranges and blues. In terms of costume Kid Cudi is dressed in work uniform to match the mise en scene of video but he always wears a black and green G Shock Watch that doesn’t exactly match his costume but shows individual styling and reference the growing trend and popularity of G-Shock Watches.
As the video continues we get a chance to see what type of character Kid Cudi is and how he’s been marketed with the way we performs and reacts to things in the shop; as this is first Music video distributed to the UK public its important to see how they build up his star image
The hallucinations shown range from humorous to conventional of the genre like a dog
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