Introduction
You Should Be Here is the second mixtape released by singer Kehlani on April of 2015. The mixtape is made up of 15 songs in which Kehlani channels a mixture of longing and uncertainty about both, romantic and familial, relationships in her life. The mixtape’s cover sparked my intreset as it was a painted portrait of Kehlani on top of a building. For the purpose of this paper, I will attempt to answer this research question: How does Kehlani’s mixtape cover further embolden and highlight the mixtape’s themes?
I will be using textual analysis and relying on my observations, to emphaize how an artist’s album cover is critical in predicting what their album’s main themes are. For example, in this paper, I will be concluding that the …show more content…
In Kehlani’s first album, Cloud19, we see an animation of the side of a grey plane in the middle of pink clouds. A feminised animated character is sitting at the edge of the side of the plane, while dangling her feet. The viewer is expected to conclude that the animated character is Kehlani by the tattoos found on her forearm and upperarm. In the far distance we see “Cloud 19” in all white, indicating the name of the album. It is important to have a brief background of Kehlani’s first album cover as it relates to the mixtape cover I will be analyzing.
The first secondary source that I will use to support my research is an article called “Psychology of Colour in Art,” in which colors are broken down into catagories of emotions that each color provokes. I chose to include this as one my secondary sources due to the color scheme of the You Should Be Here mixtape. After making my observations about the color scheme found in the mixtape, I will use this secondary source to talk about why artist, Kehlani, chose those …show more content…
Becasue there are many skyscrappers that cross the clouds, one can conclude that the setting is in New York, which makes the red bridge that is seen in the distance Bay Bridge. The laptop and electronic piano keyboard is viewed as Kehlani’s mini recodring studio as she usually produced her own music. The black high top vans are Kehlani’s favorite shoe’s according to one of her interviews, and so the high top vans being placed behind Kehlani suggests that she’s taking them off for a brief relaxation, where she can look out at these clouds. The yellow color that is seen on the middle left of the cover suggest the sunsetting as the pink clouds are usually seen during sunsets. The plane flying on the right side refers to Kehlani’s older album, Cloud19. As I mentioned earlier, Kehlani was animated sitting on an edge of a plane in her previous album. “Repeating images in an artist’s covers”are usually always linked, meaning that the plane was found on the second mixtape’s cover for a reason. Seeing the plane this time flying higher without Kehlani, symbolizes her getting off and gradually sinking to a lower ground as she comes in terms with reality.
Colors are very important in figuring out the theme to an album cover as they “explore visual perception.. And represent or evoke an emtion.” The color scheme of Kehlani’s mixtape cover does
You Should Be Here is the second mixtape released by singer Kehlani on April of 2015. The mixtape is made up of 15 songs in which Kehlani channels a mixture of longing and uncertainty about both, romantic and familial, relationships in her life. The mixtape’s cover sparked my intreset as it was a painted portrait of Kehlani on top of a building. For the purpose of this paper, I will attempt to answer this research question: How does Kehlani’s mixtape cover further embolden and highlight the mixtape’s themes?
I will be using textual analysis and relying on my observations, to emphaize how an artist’s album cover is critical in predicting what their album’s main themes are. For example, in this paper, I will be concluding that the …show more content…
In Kehlani’s first album, Cloud19, we see an animation of the side of a grey plane in the middle of pink clouds. A feminised animated character is sitting at the edge of the side of the plane, while dangling her feet. The viewer is expected to conclude that the animated character is Kehlani by the tattoos found on her forearm and upperarm. In the far distance we see “Cloud 19” in all white, indicating the name of the album. It is important to have a brief background of Kehlani’s first album cover as it relates to the mixtape cover I will be analyzing.
The first secondary source that I will use to support my research is an article called “Psychology of Colour in Art,” in which colors are broken down into catagories of emotions that each color provokes. I chose to include this as one my secondary sources due to the color scheme of the You Should Be Here mixtape. After making my observations about the color scheme found in the mixtape, I will use this secondary source to talk about why artist, Kehlani, chose those …show more content…
Becasue there are many skyscrappers that cross the clouds, one can conclude that the setting is in New York, which makes the red bridge that is seen in the distance Bay Bridge. The laptop and electronic piano keyboard is viewed as Kehlani’s mini recodring studio as she usually produced her own music. The black high top vans are Kehlani’s favorite shoe’s according to one of her interviews, and so the high top vans being placed behind Kehlani suggests that she’s taking them off for a brief relaxation, where she can look out at these clouds. The yellow color that is seen on the middle left of the cover suggest the sunsetting as the pink clouds are usually seen during sunsets. The plane flying on the right side refers to Kehlani’s older album, Cloud19. As I mentioned earlier, Kehlani was animated sitting on an edge of a plane in her previous album. “Repeating images in an artist’s covers”are usually always linked, meaning that the plane was found on the second mixtape’s cover for a reason. Seeing the plane this time flying higher without Kehlani, symbolizes her getting off and gradually sinking to a lower ground as she comes in terms with reality.
Colors are very important in figuring out the theme to an album cover as they “explore visual perception.. And represent or evoke an emtion.” The color scheme of Kehlani’s mixtape cover does