Wavin flag- K`Naan

Wavin Flag – K` Naan feat Will .I. am and David Guetta

Wavin flag is by a Canadian artist K`Naan who released his first single April 2010. K`Naan music video is the genre Hip-hop and was written for a South African football team in the world cup. The music label that promoted this single was Universal Music group, and was produced by The Smeezingtons. The Smeezingtons produced songs for well known artists such as Sugar babes, Flo-rida and Sean Kingston. In Canada this song got to 2nd position in the chart show out of 100 other songs, however in the UK the Single reached number 1 in the R and B hits in a matter of days after being released. In this song he is taking about his country and other countries around him waving there flags together in the world cup to come a one big family. However writing this song for the South African football team, who is less fortunate than we are. The characteristics I personally expect to find would be a lot of dancing due to the genre and possible be more narrative based with small clips of performance based.

Throughout this music video they tend to repeat the chorus “When I get older, I will be stronger there call me freedom just like a waving flag” however when they are singing “Waving Flag” whilst saying this there is a black flag flying in the background and they are waving there hands as if they are waving an actual flag for there country. However most of his lyrics do not have relationship with visuals as a lot of his lyrics has a meaning behind them E.G. “When I grow older, I will be stronger, I’ll make it stronger.” For the last part of these lyrics he is playing with a young black girl, and there I a mid shot of her face smiling, this shows he is there to make the community happy as this is a deprived area of the country. You can see this because there is a shot of them walking through the deprived town with the slums and market stalls. There is also another lyric “struggle no longer” the visuals are of him walking into a hotel room getting ready for a concert, this totally contradicts the visual however as you watch in further down the line you can see him performing at his concert and holds up the African flag in pride and glory.

After each beat there is a cut to a new scene E.G. “It’s not far away but for now we say.” Throughout this lyrics there is an aeroplane flying through the air and as soon as the lyric above finishes it automatically cuts to K`Naan singing on a black background. Throughout the whole music video the cuts pretty much cut to the beat of the music allowing us the audience have a better understanding of the relationship between the music and the visuals.

To try and sell this record the production company has had K`Naan the artist to be performing throughout the whole of the music video and also has him performing at his concerts. This allows him to promote his concerts as well as his single. The image the artist is trying to give of is a caring and nurturing character as the song is about helping the less fortunate, You can see this by the visuals as there are images of him hugging young children and sitting in deprived areas. To me this image represents how we take things for granted as there are so many people who are less fortunate than we are, and he shows this through his visuals.

Throughout the whole music video he is not on sexual display as it would totally go against his lyrics to his song. In this video he is very reserved and has kept himself to himself. The re4ason why he has used himself as a sex symbol is because the main focus on his video is the message behind it. This video was made for a South African Football you is less privileged than we are, he shows this through hugging the young children and having a connection with the community.

To me the only intertextual reference I can think of is when you see programmes of celebrities going into a deprived area like “WAGS, kids and world cup dreams” This shows how celebrities are helping the community that suffer with material deprivation, this has a very small link to the video as they are both helping deprived areas.

In conclusion the music video is more of a performance based than a narrative based as most of the clips is him in concert or performing to the audience.