Extra Credit: Workin Together Earth Day Rap

This Earth Day rap video was special in many ways. Not only did this rap video effectively promote the saving of our earth, but it did so in a hip and young way which promoted the viewings of multiple different kinds of audiences. With the constant beat and rhythm and rhyming it became a video that you could easily show kids of all ages. It also however promoted ideas that only the educated would truly comprehend. In this way this video is effective in its rhetoric because it attracts audiences of all kinds and this supplies it with a vast majority of its views.

The video opens with a man preaching in rhythm and implementing rhymes into his speech as he discusses his views with a group of people sitting on some steps. He finishes his verse with a pause and a “hit it” with a point of his fingers. The screen then slides over to where we see a lot of people singing, dancing and clapping their hands. Here, Will Smith comes onto the stage. Will Smith is a young man in the video and he was a very popular figure at the time. With his show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” he became a well known star. He opens the set and raps over a simple beat and then finishes his verse and hands it off to the line of other people who also rap a verse in this Earth Day song. Beginning this song sequence with Will Smith’s portion was the real genius behind this music video. Once the audience saw Will Smith, immediately the video became more interesting as its entertainment value rose. This allowed for more people to first be interested in the video at all and second to want to see what else was in store with the video. If they had one big star who knows who the next one could be? This was also beneficiary to this particular video to star Will Smith because of his talent behind a microphone. He is entertaining no matter what he is doing but it is well known that his rapping ability is strong. He also closes his portion with a line that allows for love from a different audience than he was addressing before. He closes his verse with, “Let’s all take a puff here on Earth Day.” This opens up to the smoking population. Typically those who smoke weed, which one can assume he was referring to. have an appreciation for the world around them and often are more in tune with their environment. This line was effective because those watching who do smoke, which I’m sure a large percentage of spectators do, feel a connection not only with the performer but also with all the other audience out there watching similar to them. The song continues to address individual smaller groups and to narrow down its audience to a more personal level which is a very effective form of persuasion.

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