Dizzee Rascal - Dream

The 1950s sitting room has a mise en scene with a grand piano and a muted colour pallet to make it seem old fashioned, with reference to the black and white TV from the 1950s. It could also be to highlight Dizzee in his bright red hoodie which is a commonly used film technique. The room is made to look like it is in an upper class house, shown by the grand piano which implies wealth.

There is also another world that is constructed on top of the grand piano in the sitting room, which is a city setting with police brutality and graffiti. Because these worlds would usually be so far apart it creates a strong juxtaposition between the living room and the scene being acted out inside of it. It highlights that although the people in these expensive houses didn’t see the events in the city, it was still happening. The people in these houses would usually be very sheltered from violence, so to have it depicted on top of a grand piano which is a symbol of wealth, it creates a powerful message which targets the people who had this wealth but did nothing to help those being mistreated in the worse off parts of the country.

The female sitting at the piano represents the mainstream public's reaction to grime when it first emerged from its underground beginnings in London. She is judging him on everything he says and does, and is shocked by the violent nature of his words and actions. They are in a hierarchical relationship with the woman, clearly from a wealthy part of the world, never having to have dealt with the problems that Grime artists from cities did, being shocked by what she saw and almost intimidated by it, so she naturally pushes it away, the same way the public did when Grime was on the rise.

When Dizzee looks into the camera, he is directly addressing the audience, which shows that this is an important message he wants to get across to the audience. This is common in Grime music as it is often less well produced and usually features someone rapping to the camera. This is because generally in Grime the lyrics and the aggressive tone are the most important parts and not the music video, for example Stormzy's single - "Shut Up" features him, surrounded by his gang, rapping to the camera, with low production. It could also be interpreted that they look into the lens of the camera to connect with the audience and want to be seen that this is their real opinion and they are not performers. This could be because they are all trying to push the message that their culture matters too, and they want to make people understand that their lyrics reflect them as a genuine person.

The video features many postmodern elements. At the start of the video, a sound clip of the song, "Happy Talk" from the film South Pacific (1958) is playing and Dizzee says "This is too sensible for me man", which is a reference to Captain Sensible's cover of "Happy Talk" from 1982. This is common for Grime to incorporate sound snippets from other media productions, so postmodernism is common in Grime. Also the puppets used in the video are the same style as the famous "Muffin The Mule" children's' show from 1946. Also a replica Mule was used in the video to make the reference clearer.

This is a track from the Grime genre, which emerged in London in the early 2000s and is now a popular genre. This is shown by Stormzy's album: Gangs Signs & Prayer, which reached number 1 in the UK charts. Grime is usually 140bpm and often features an aggressive or jagged electronic sound. Rapping is also a significant element of the style and lyrics revolve around gritty representations of urban life. There is a strong sense of representing the place you live or have grown up in.

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