Analysis: Despacito - Luis Fonsi ft Daddy Yankee (Music Video)

Despacito

- Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee –

The video begins with a beautiful view, setting the scene with an acoustic sounding version of the song subtly playing in the background. It’s a beautiful beach in Puerto Rico, the hometown of the lead musician. A child is shown running into a chicken coop and trying to catch a chicken. After this we get the first glimpse of the women that seems to be the topic of the song, walking down the pathway. The scene is shortcut off to show a long-shot view of the favela type houses stacked on top of each other in front of the beach we had seen previously. This once again helps with reinforcing the set of the scene. The inspiration behind this video I believe is Latin America meets Spanish music and influence. This theme is well developed throughout the video as salsa, a Spanish dance is incorporated into the video along with the style of the music and the Latin American landscape.

After this, the music gets louder and louder and we are shown, for the first time, our first full body look at the women that we saw before. She wears very summery colorful clothing, this sets the warm atmosphere of the video. As the song builds up in sound the vocalist begins to sing and we start to see the girl we see vaguely more and more. We follow her across the pathway by the beach, down a narrow road then through the city. This makes us grow a relationship with her because where she passes by she seems to have a positive impact. We see various different types of shots of her walking, from the back, a close-up shot of her face. These are very intimate shots and this makes us the viewers grow a sort of relationship with her. This is all in efforts to make us be on her side. We see her kiss children and laugh. This is a clear representation of the kind of ideal women we root for in society. She’s beautiful, slim and happy; she’s fashion-forward but also dressed very simply; she enjoys the company of children and elderly citizens and the best part is that she is being sung to by the main vocalist which to fans of this artist if the place they want to be. She also represents every women or girl watching this video or listening to this song.

Throughout this video there are about two different sets where the artists in this video change clothing and change the set but they move around this village quite a bit. There are many scenarios where they film at almost showing us the essence of the city/ village.