Media Analysis - Big For Your Boots

Rap/Grime Artist Stormzy uses different social groups throughout his video for Big For Your Boots to illustrate how London is a melting pot of culture and people.

Within the opening shot of the video, we see Stormzy surrounded by some women outside of a block of flats in what appears to be a deprived area. We can infer the area is deprived as there is smoke billowing around the area as Stormzy begins to sing, the bricks are dark and stained, and the plants either lack leaves or have discolored leaves. The women he’s surrounded by are meant to be interpreted as “mates”, the sort of girls you’d hang out with but wouldn’t date – they have dyed hair, glasses and are wearing a punk aesthetic. They perform alongside Stormzy. This is contrasted later with the woman at the chicken shop and the woman in the car – both are played for eye-candy and do not join Stormzy in with his performing. While the intended message is that these are the sorts of girls others would aspire to be, a more negotiated response would be that Stormzy is unintentionally dividing up women – by hanging out in bad areas with bad people, they become undesirable, and your only value is if some guy finds you attractive.

We also see Stormzy ground himself as a black, male music artist based in the UK. His friends at the pub are mostly black, with a couple being of different races (one is implied to be from the Middle East, another seems to be Caucasian), with the shots of him with the “geezers” (white, middle-aged men) being interspersed with quick shots of them being aggressive towards Stormzy, even attacking him by the end. He also rides in a police car down London Bridge, sirens overlaid on several takes whilst in the background we can see the London Eye, and a cutaway shot depicts The Shard. These help solidify Stormzy as a black, male, English artist as we see his depictions of race through his friend group, the uneasy relations with the “geezers” and the frequent police imagery; male via his friend group being mostly male and the previously mentioned women being used for eye candy; and English by the many references to British cuisine (pubs & chicken shops) and landmarks (red buses on the London Bridge with the Eye in the background). All these helps solidify his identification of himself.

The general narrative, as is standard for rap music, is not well-defined, as rap music artists prefer to make more performative music videos, with Stormzy being no exception. However, we can infer a narrative through mise-en-scene, with the depictions of Stormzy in several locations. We initially see him in a gang outside of a block of flats in a rough part of town, who then take over a chicken shop. Stormzy gets arrested and ends up fighting against a group of white people previously shown harassing Stormzy. While this isn’t a perfect narrative (ignoring the pub friends, the red-dressed lady and the middle-aged Sikhs), we can infer this was the meaning encoded within the story, as Stormzy’s gang is mostly made of women, and a woman joins him in the chicken shop, and Stormzy wasn’t attacking the “geezers” before they start ganging up on him. This music video depicts an average life in London for someone like Stormzy – meeting like-minded people, getting into trouble with authority, fighting against other gangs, and racism. However amore negotiated reading would infer the story to not be fully about racism, as it’s a celebration of British culture, with both the pub group and the gang being ethnically diverse and Stormzy being unafraid of depicting himself alongside other races (for example, Sikhs).