Born a Prince, Left a King

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-air. These are the opening lines to the intro song of the television comedy “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, that me and every 90’s kids with a TV has had memorized since the day we first heard it. Even as you read that first sentence, you can’t help but to rap the words, and hum the tune as you envision a young Will Smith spinning on his royal chair with the graffiti background. The effect of the lyrics and the music video to this intro song goes way beyond pure entertainment value. The music video and lyrics spread happiness, …show more content…

From Will’s slang rap style to his wardrobe it’s apparent that the producers of the show had emotional appeal on the mind when they were producing the music video.
Although plenty ethos and pathos examples were existent in the video, logical appeal was not. The logical appeal would find itself misplaced in a video such as this one. The qwerky and optimistic feel of the music video didn’t demand the need of any logical reasoning to gain the attention of viewers. Ethos and pathos supplied the video with enough appeal that made any need for logical appeals unnecessary. Though the video itself plays a key role in gaining the appeal of teenage viewers, the lyrics themself have a task of equal importance. The lyrics contain the substance of the music video. The lyrics are the reason that most 90’s generation young adults today can at any given time rap the into song. The video is nothing without the lyrics, and much like the video the lyrics utilize both ethos and pathos appeals.
At the start of the video Will Smith states, West Philadelphia was where he was born and raised and on the playground is where he spent most of his days. This gives credibility to his character by telling the audience where he is from and what he does in his free time. By doing this Will makes himself more transparent and more personable to his audience. Late in the video, Will