Kanye West Sierra Leone

From the beginning of the music video, Africa is seen in striking contrast to Europe. Sierra Leone is demonstrated with scenes of excruciating labor conditions, child labor, slavery, and worker exploitation. It also depicts how Africa is excluded from the “commodity” almost immediately after the good- the ‘Veblen good’- is produced. Sierra Leone is viewed in connection with the illicit diamond trade. Europe- specifically Prague- is juxtaposed culturally, aesthetically, and economically from Africa. Prague is displayed with its beautiful city and its ornate cathedrals. The rationale of the contrast is to unveil the history of Europe reaping the toil of Africa in form of slave labor; European success is built on the African back, per se. The binary opposition between Africa and Europe starts to be deconstructed at (4:21) when the African kids help Kanye West who fell down jumping out of the vehicle, to represent how

For example, he uses the image of an exploited child with her dilated pupils showing the sadness and fear in (0:41). In addition to that, West manipulates the audience’s emotions effectively by exploring the exhaustion, misery, and fear of the African laborers that is visibly distinguishable from the carefree leisure of the Europeans. The appeal to logos can be spotted throughout the work to shed light on who the participants of the illicit diamond trade are. However, this logos has its limitations, for the piece exhibits West’s narcissism explicitly in the lyrics and his various cameos in the video. Ethos is not as pronounced as the other appeals. There may be questions on whether West is qualified to relay this information since he is an ‘outsider’ considering his background on the topic. Contrary to that aspect of ethos, the other angle is in the values that the video renders: the worth placed on the ‘underdogs’ of society, for they may have the resilience to continue