Research into chosen artist

My chosen artist is Rita Ora, our group decided to choose her as we feel like she current, up and coming and has a lot of new and experimental tracks on her debut album 'Ora'. She's generally categorized as being from the mainstream Pop/R&B genre which appeals to me as the majority of the music I listen to and the music that dominates mainstream charts comes from these two genres with examples of artists such as; Beyonce, Rihanna, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo who create a lot of R&B stuff, while Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber who produce a lot of Pop. Since these two genres influence and appeal to me a lot, I thought Rita Ora would be a good artist to choose as she's a fusion between the two and offers various directions to take the meanings and narratives in her songs.

BIOGRAPHY: RITA ORA 

BasicsFull Name: Rita Sahatciu Ora
Age: 22
D.O.B: 26th November 1990
Birth Country: Pristina, Kosovo
Current Residence: London, United Kingdom
Genres: Pop, Dance-Rock, Dance-Pop, R&B
Occupation: Singer, Song-writer, Actress
Years Active: 2007-Present
Label: Roc Nation
Website: ritaora.com

Early Years 

Rita Ora grew up around Portobello Road in West London and attended St Matthia's CE Primary School, then graduated Sylvia Young Theatre School and then from St Charles Sixth Form College. She now lives in Kensington, London. Rita Ora's been singing from an early age and in the year 2000 she appeared in the British film "Spivs", she also auditioned for the Eurovision in 2009 but withdrew because she didn't feel as though she was ready. 

Career & Commercial Breakthrough 
Throughout 2011 Rita Ora began releasing videos of herself onto YouTube of her working on her debut album now released and titled 'ORA'. While this was happening she also released her hit single which could be considered her break through song titled "Hot Right Now" in which she collaborated with DJ Fresh.
On February 24th 2012 both Rita Ora and her record labels boss Jay-Z went to New York to release her first single in which she didn't have someone featuring on titled "How We Do", prior to this she had released her number one single "R.I.P" in which she worked with British rapper Tinie Tempah on.
During her time in the music industry, Rita has picked up various credits and awards such as: Best UK/Ireland Act, Best New Artist and Push Artist at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards (or EMA's for short). 

Influences & Friends in the industry Rita has a wide range of influences when it comes to her music from the industry in the current day and from musicians that are no longer active, some of the people she has credited are as followed: 

• Gwen Stefani 
• Beyonce 
• Rihanna 
• India Arie 
• Madonna 
• Tina Turner 
• Aretha Franklin 
• Celine Dion
• Bruce Springsteen 

Close friends in the music industry and in other elements of the entertainment industry include Harry Styles from One Direction, Burberry and Victoria Secrets Model Cara Delevingne, Radio DJ Nick Grimshaw, Pixie Geldof, Chris Brown, Drake, Bruno Mars and Azealia Banks.

Discography 

STUDIO ALBUMS: 1
SINGLES: 5 

MUSIC VIDEOS: 5
PROMOTIONAL SINGLES: 1 

Here are the current chart positions, sales and statistics for Rita Ora's first self-titled album "ORA": 

 

  The track list for "Ora" is as followed:

1. Face Melt 
2. Roc The Life 
3. How We Do (Party) 
4. R.I.P (featuring Tinie Tempah) 
5. Radioactive 
6. Shine Ya Light 
7. Love and War (featuring J.Cole)
8. Uneasy 
9. Fall in Love (featuring Will.I.Am) 
10. Been Lying 
11. Hello, Hi, Goodbye 
12. Hot Right Now (DJ Fresh featuring Rita Ora) 

Analysis of "Hot Right Now" - DJ Fresh and Rita Ora 

'Hot Right Now' is the first music videos of Rita Ora's to be released and she's presented with almost platinum blonde hair which is rare to find on someone of her heritage, automatically making her appear more intriguing. She also has red lipstick which is very eye-catching and makes her lips one of her more dominant features which could be considered being sexualized conveying to the generics R&B and the genres representation of women.

Now, throughout the rest of her career since this video Rita Ora has still kept the red lips and blonde hair as one of her trademarks along with her unique urban style which supports Dyer Stars Theory of how starts are constructed to have recognizable and obvious personality and image traits which their fans and audience can see and relate to every time they see something by the star - creating a matter of relatable consistency.

 Following this, in the video the bright colors, up-tempo beat and dancing all form to give the impression that Rita Ora's character is out-going, bold as well as fun. While Rita is toned and in shape, showing the usual image of how stars are portrayed looking glamorous and at their best creating the "perfect women", she also shows a sense of individuality and confidence which gives the message to her audience of young adult fans from around the ages of 17-23 that it's okay to stand out from the crowd and not always convey to what's expected by society.

Another theory that "Hot Right Now" conveys to is Goodwin's Theory. One way the music video does this is through the visuals in the video amplifying the upbeat lyrics which give the vibes of partying and having fun. The video is set in daytime when it's sunny which connotes happiness as well as a lot of different people of different races dancing and hanging around together. This also expresses unity and diversity all at once, which again conveys back to how Rita is presented in this video and the apparent morals it could give to her target audience of young people who're into mainstream Pop, Dance and R&B encouraging them to follow them if they happen to find Rita Ora's initial image appealing.

 "Hot Right Now" is a performance based video where we see a lot of Rita singing straight into the camera via close up, mid-shot and long shot. This helps the target audience of young adults get a feel for Rita Ora's persona and style as these days a lot of people have different ideas when it comes to fashion and it's important that they can relate to a stars style, especially when it's the stars first video. Other shots that were commonly used are low angled long shots and wide shots. Long shots once again let us see a full view of the star while wide shots capture the action that may not involve the star directly but instead help to amplify that vibe of 'feel-good' which is usually found in typical Pop videos and the track "Hot Right Now" crosses over this genre.

Analysis of "Shine Ya Light" - Rita Ora 

Throughout one of Rita's newer music videos "Shine Ya Light" there are a close connection between the lyrics and the visuals in the sense that the visuals are amplifying what's being sung in her song. At the beginning of the music video we see personal footage of Rita Ora arriving in Kosovo, her home country. She's surrounded by people giving her a warm welcome and is clearly known as an important person at home because there a hundreds of people with cameras gathering her as she gets out of the car. The close ups of Rita smiling indicate that even though she's climbed out the car into absolutism chaos, she feels safe and a sense of belonging in her birth town which highlights pretty much the whole concept behind the music video and the lyrics of her song.

Also throughout the chorus of the song, the lyrics that're sung go "Hey ya, Hey ya, Hey ya, Hey you're a shining star. Hey ya, Hey ya, Hey ya, No matter where you are. Oh, Shine your light" these lyrics are amplified by the many frames of Rita performing and interacting with her fellow Kosovo natives. Towards the end of the video she's standing on a huge letter "E" infront of a crowd of people all looking up to her, this could represent how Rita Ora has rose from Kosovo to pursue her dreams and the spotlight on her, making her stand out in the frame also indicates how she's lighting the way for others wanting people to live their dreams just like she has done which places emphasis on the beliefs and messages behind the lyrics.

Since the lyrics to "Shine Ya Light" is directed at glamorizing her home country of Kosovo and a way of showing her respect for the island, the music video contains a lot of shots that don't nessecarily feature Rita in them but feature locals from Pristina going about their daily life which is just as important when wanting to get across the values of the song. It could also be said that because a lot of these shots use natural lighting, Rita wants her fans to see the beauty of Pristina without altering or glamorizing it as a lot of commercial, Hollywood styled projects have a tendency to do when they're visiting a foreign area for a star to shoot their video (i.e. Man Down - Rihanna, Run The World - Beyonce).

The backing track itself is very Eastern European sounding with instruments such as the drums present along with sounds from mix boards that give off ethnic vibes. During the verses, the music is very slow and relaxed reflecting the evidently easy and laid-back lifestyle of Kosovo as shown in the visuals. However, as the bridge and chorus come in the use of some kind of wind instrument can be heard which is also traditionally a very cultured and foreign instrument as oppose to something commercial and westernized music would use. The variation in the pitch of the wind notes come together to create a magical and up lifting sound which could connote Rita's rise to fame. It also gives her audience a taste of her hometowns culture and music differentiation  offering something that's more personal to her as oppose to the manufactured beats in "R.I.P" and "Radioactive".

A sudden breakdown in the track occurs accompanied by the lyrics: "Yeah we don't give up 'til we run out of desire, we steal the finish and we never get tired, we are the winners 'cos we hold the world title, we started slow but we beat you in the final" and in the background police sirens can be heard as Rita walks along the street with police motorbikes closely following behind her. The break down with heavy beats becoming more noticeable along with the lyrics could represent how Rita is staying true to her country and using the pronoun "we" to define her European native and "you" to define the Western world and the commercial industry.
This could connote Rita's beliefs in wanting people from all over the world wanting to achieve their dreams instead of just your average person from the Western world (U.K or America) and rise to fame, giving everybody an equal chance. Also, the alarms could signal a revolution to warn viewers of the talent that she believes lies within Kosovo.

At the beginning of the music video intertextuality is used by the showing of a Nokia touchscreen phone which forms to the conventions of R&B as it is typical for videos of that genre to show off luxury and materialistic items, glamorizing the celebrity life style. However, the glamour is quickly taken away when the close up fans out into what looks like a rooftop in Kosovo, over looking a very basic and very under developed landscape. Although there's nothing wrong with this it goes against the viewers expectations. This could  show Rita's growth of how she started as a child in Kosovo, just like the one shown in the beginning and has now gone onto bigger and more glamorous things which is shown by the symbolism of a luxury phone. Overall, this could push the message of following dreams and embracing talent which is already embedded in the song itself.

Following the materialistic and bran intertextuality, during the video there are also frames where Rita is wearing 'Sony' headphones and the camera is purposely put at a high angle to capture the label on the headphones. I think once again this is to show the growth of her as a person, coming from Kosovo where you hardly hear of anybody rising to fame and then landing a record deal with "Roc Nation", which is a subsidiary of the oligopoly, Sony ME. It's also a brand that Rita's audience probably have some familiarity with.

Rita is represented as proud throughout the video of "Shine Ya Light" due to shots of her wearing the Kosovo flag as a balaclava around her mouth with her hood up standing on a roof. The way she looks directly into the camera could suggested that she's proud of her roots and isn't afraid to let her audience and fans know where she came from even if it isn't as glamorous as London, where she was discovered or the USA where her record label and a lot of her future projects are from. During these frames she's also wearing gold chains and once again clothing that's fashionable and typical of an R&B scene such as a fur hooded coat which contrasts with the rough landscape of Kosovo when she is standing on the roof.
In addition to this, there are also frames shown where Rita is dressed down, stripped of all the iconography and street styled fashion that we're used to seeing her in and instead is in casual wear, doing every-day things such as walking a dog with natives of Pristina. This also shows how she feels that Pristina is her home and she doesn't feel as though she needs her "star image" when she's there, she can just be the Rita she was prior to the fame.

While I think "Shine Ya Light" is initially a performance based video with a lot of evidence of Rita singing directly to the camera and making that important connection with her audience, I also think that it's conceptual as it forces a lot of ideologies onto the viewers about Rita being proud of where she came from and her culture. It also makes the video more personal and enables the audience an insight to Rita's roots which they maybe wasn't in the know about before, making them feel closer to their idol and fulfilling their aims when watching a video.

Using Rita Ora as an inspiration in my work 
Studying Rita Ora and doing research on her has given me inspiration to not be afraid of going against certain conventions of a genre and instead going deeper and bringing out cultural and moral ideologies of the star throughout the video. Rita's also given me the idea of presenting two different images of the same person. For instance where Rita Ora is presented as the Kosovo Rita and Rita the star, we could look at researching into our artist: 

• Before fame and after fame 
• The real artist and the product artist 
• Society's beliefs and the stars belief's

all to help our target audience feel more connected to the artist and in the know on what their about and what it is that's important and not important to them.