In the last 15 years I have probably heard around 6,000 songs specifically about being in a club. The issue is, I have never been in a club, and I honestly don't know how to find one or what to do once I am inside one. I am also relatively sure I don't have any clothes that are cool enough to grant me access to a club, so a club isn't really feasible for me as a social option right now.
But anyways, the reason I mention this is because today on Music Video Relapse we're watching a song that is club-related, "In Da Club" by 50 Cent from 2003, directed by Philip G. Atwell.
If you will recall, in his early career 50 Cent was presented as a rapper produced and backed by Eminem and Dr. Dre. "In Da Club" picks up that thread by creating a sort of training facility run by the duo, where 50 Cent comes to work on being a rapper and club goer. His training includes working out, rapping into a microphone, and being in a club (most of the video is the club part).
Before we got any further, we should talk about the shot where 50 Cent is being operated on and Dr. Dre and Eminem are looking down at him. I cannot for the life of me tell if this short is implying that 50 Cent is some sort of robot, or if he's actually being operated on for some reason. Maybe they are implanting a microchip to track him? The opening of 50 Cent's back looks maybe like he is made up of electronics, but what that means is unclear. If he is a robot, I guess he wouldn't have to work out, so what are they doing to him?
I also find it really odd that for one of the rapping shots, 50 Cent is reading directly off a yellow legal pad. Not that rappers shouldn't be able to have some help with remembering their raps, but for a music video it feels like an odd choice to have him staring at paper while rapping. Maybe it was meant to show him getting better at rapping since he doesn't look at paper in later shots. If that was true, though, when he first gets in the club he'd need some help ordering a drink and talking to girls.
At the end of the video we find out that the club that 50 Cent has been in is actually a club housed on the grounds of this training facility, and Dre and Eminem are observing 50 Cent through a one way mirror. They seem satisfied with the way he is doing things in the club.
This is one of those music video concepts that is interesting to draw conclusions from, and in this video we can safely assume that there have been rappers who have gone through this laboratory and failed, perhaps getting to the club and having a panic attack or being rejected by the women there. Who were these rapper? We'll never know. Speaking of the women in the club, we can also assume that they are hired by Dre and Eminem and are possibly on call or scheduled to appear at staged club parties for observation and live in the nearby area. This seems like a lot of overhead.
If you are thinking "well maybe they just rented this place", I say to that that we do know that this facility is specifically built for rappers - it has a built in sound booth with a microphone that is presumably connected to some sort of studio equipment. It's unlikely that this all exists in one general purpose facility in such a remote location, especially a facility with a full-service club with a one way mirror.
This must've been an expensive facility for Shady/Aftermath Records to build and continue to operate. Not only does it have medical equipment, it is staffed by doctors and attendant physicians who are ostensibly there to evaluate the health of a potential rapping performer.
Plain and simple, I don't know how a facility like the one featured in "In Da Club" is financially feasible, and although I have never been to a club, I seriously doubt that many of them have exposed brick.
