For weeks DJ Khaled and social media have been promoting the music video for DJ Khaled’s track ‘Nas Album Done’ featuring Hiphop icon and dope lyricist Nas. We have all seen the snaps of the two American icons in the Caribbean with Ox Aka Teddy Bruckshot from the Jamaican Gangster Movie ‘Shotters’ and a teaser video which showcased the amazing movie like quality of the visuals. Yesterday the visual dropped via VEVO and as of right now it has over 1.9 million views echoing our views that its something worth watching.
Whilst that is a fantastic achievement for the artist to get such a huge audience viewing their work, these types of numbers also come with the temptation to “cash in” via advertising and marketing methods, involving brands willing to pay huge amounts of money to have their products in such a video. This form of “cashing in” is a term used in the marketing industry called product placement.
Product placement ( advertising a product or brand through display or use of said product within a production ) has been going on since sitcoms like Friends and Soaps like Eastenders in the 90’s and before. It’s nothing new and we as an audience have come to accept it as normal and almost as a guide for what stuff is cool and current. That being said being advertised to within an entertaining music video, TV show or radio interview ( Breakfast Club etc ) is ok as long as it is tasteful, brief and doesn’t distract us from what we wanted to see.
The Nas’ Album Done Music video has a storyline of positivity, dope bars from Nas about uplifting our community’s if we are in a position to do so and also some entertaining moments from the legendary Jamaican Don Dada Ox and DJ Khaled.
However throughout the visual we are constantly bombarded with imagery of products that seem strangely out of place to the visual, a big disappointment to us as true hiphop fans to see Music and entertainment hijacked by brands with big budgets. to be fair the visual does include lifestyle products and brands that fit with the theme of luxury and hiphop for example we have products being shown like the Rolls Royce and Goyard Duffel Bag that Nas is wearing that are tasteful products that really fit in with the rappers lifestyle so we haven’t highlighted these but then there are products that have been given their own cameos and are heavily branded which lets down the visual and distracts from what overall is a dope track! We as fans of the hiphop culture would like these things to stop or be toned down and real music to be the main selling point.
In ‘Nas’ Album Done’ we have spotted over 5 different brands being advertised and none of them are subtle or brief check out the images below and you can answer our question yourself ; DJ Khaled’s ‘Nas Album Done’ ft Nas a Music video or an advert?
Ciroc Vodka
Beats By Dre
Belaire LUC
Rich Cigars
Kandi Cigars
Words: @Mr_TrappedMag
