Prompt:
Select a living artist in any genre of popular music who currently records and performs original music. Focus on one or two aspects of the artist’s identity, analyze how these aspects are expressed in their performances and discuss how they function within their respective music cultures. Your best sources will be music videos, live performances online, interviews and audio tracks.
Objectives:
· To understand how identities are presented through music performance
· To learn how to conduct academic research on current and historical topics
· To develop skills in constructing effective arguments and demonstrating critical thinking
Requirements:

You must use at least three different videos (that is, three different songs) as primary subject material to analyze your artist’s performances. They can be either excerpts of live performances (streaming or video) or official music videos, or both. (YouTube) If you find raw footage of an entire full-length concert by a single artist, or if you “attend an entire live-streamed performance (as many artists are doing right now since they can’t tour) you may use that as your primary subject material instead of three videos.
You may use documentaries about your artist for background research, but these will NOT suffice as your primary subject material because you need to create your own narrative context.
You can include all the audio-only tracks you want, as these will help you analyze lyrics, vocal style and instrumentation, but these must be in addition to the three videos or raw concert footage.
Your paper should include a clear thesis statement at the beginning.