“They like using girls like me,light skin girls”: Music videos,race,and technology in Accra,Ghana

Introduction

In 2017, Nivea sparked public backlash when their Natural Fairness Body lotion billboard promoted a lotion “For visibly fairer skin.” ¹ It featured Omowunmi Akinnifesi, the winner of the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria. Ghanaian rapper based in the U.K., Fuse ODG (Nana Richard Abiona) started an online #PullItDownCampaign. Nivea would eventually pull down the problematic billboards. When I was asked how I felt about the billboard, I said, “I feel like it reflects our inability to deal with our colonial past and the residual impact of colorism.” ²

In contrast to the public outrage against Nivea’s light skin valorization, Shenzhen-based Transsion Holdings’ phones gained popularity in Africa partly due to the way their cameras are optimized for darker skin tones. As Wang Haibin, then Hardware Center Manager stated: “For African consumers we followed African customers’ preferences for beauty for example they liked darker eyebrows, prominent noses and they want skin that looks smooth and bright so we developed our products to meet their demands” (CGTN Africa, 2018: 1:06). To that end, Transsion created their own machine learning data set of dark-skinned people and collaborated with other companies to develop camera technologies to capture darker skin tones (Lu, 2022). At the time, previous phone cameras had not been able to capture clear, high-quality selfies of people with dark skin tones. Techno’s attention to Ghanaian beauty preferences, such as smooth and bright skin, offers insight into how technology constructs beauty. While Nivea attempted to tap into existing preferences for light skin tones, Transsions optimized its cameras to capture darker skin tones.

Historically, video technologies have been implicated in constructing and representing light or white skin as ideal (Dyer, 2017; Roth, 2009). Over the years, visual technologies have improved to accommodate a dynamic range of skin tones. However, the establishment of lighting conventions and styles are primarily rooted in Western European painting traditions, while exposure settings often use white skin as a reference (Greenhalgh, 2020; Sung, 2020, 2022). Subsequently, capturing dark skin tones is often framed as a technical challenge that requires additional steps or a deviation from standard practice. For instance, Oscar Ntege, a self-described Ugandan “lenspreneur,” published a YouTube video titled “How to set up your Canon camera for dark skin step by step” (Oscar Ntege, 2022). He shared that, instead of using the portrait profile in the picture style settings, he uses landscape mode and then reduces the default contrast.

These compensatory practices and discourses bring to mind Benjamin’s (2019) notion of discriminatory design, which describes “how social biases get coded, not only in laws and policies, but in many different objects and tools that we use in everyday life” (p. 5). This approach seeks to understand how technologies impact society, but also how social contexts shape the production of technologies. On the other hand, Winner (1980) calls for “technological politics,” which draws “attention to the characteristics of technical objects and the meaning of those characteristics” (p. 123). However, similar to Benjamin, Lievrouw (2014) argues that theorizing technology requires examining the co-determination of the social and material aspects. Together, Lievrouw and Livingstone (2006), understand “communication technology as the articulation of artifacts, practices and social arrangements” (p. 25), which are intertwined and mutually determining (p. 25).

Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, this paper examines the phenomenon of light skin valorization in representational practices in Accra, Ghana. Limited studies have primarily employed textual analysis to examine African media representations of skin tone biases (Akinro and Mbunyuza-Memani, 2019; Thomas, 2019). Previous studies have mainly explored the valorization of light skin and race in Africa through the examination of practices and discourses surrounding skin bleaching (Asante, 2016; Blay, 2010; Pierre, 2012). In examining the relationship between skin bleaching and representational practices, Thompson’s (2015) work demonstrates how dancehall attendees bleach their skin to make their bodies visible and light-sensitive to the bright light used for video-recording. While Thompson (2015) examined the valorization of light skin in representational practices within the African diaspora, this paper is interested in how African cultural producers on the continent explain and negotiate skin tone biases in their industry.

To that end, this paper examines the “industrial self-theorizing” (Caldwell, 2008: 15) of light skin valorization in the Ghanaian music video industry in the late 2010s. As Caldwell reminds us, cultural producers “critically analyze and theorize their tasks in provocative and complex ways” (p. 2). Nationally, the 2010s were marked by public debates about the valorization of light skin and associated practices, such as skin bleaching. For instance, the 2017 backlash against Nivea’s billboard followed the government’s 2016 ban on skin bleaching products. In 2016, animator and filmmaker Comfort Arthur released Black Barbie, an animated short story about her experience with skin bleaching. Within the music video production sector, there were ongoing shifts toward more racially conscious representations that included darker skin tones. Globally, this period was also marked by conversations about how Hollywood was finally lighting dark skin properly. A 2017 Guardian article was titled, “It’s lit! How film finally learned to light black skin” ³ is largely based on the Mic article that same year, “Keeping ‘Insecure’ lit: HBO cinematographer Ava Berkofsky on properly lighting black faces.” ⁴ Around that same time, Bradford Young was also being recognized for his creative and beautiful lighting of black characters on screens. ⁵

The industrial self-theorizing I examine uses a materialist approach to media, which recognizes that “technologies do things” through their materiality (Bollmer, 2021: 6). Yet, we must be attentive to how representational practices and social context are articulated to visual technologies. As such, what are the representational constraints and possibilities of the materiality of visual technologies? And what production practices emerge out of the existing social arrangements and industrial context? In this way, we can understand how creative choices can be motivated by technological artifacts even as they are articulated to existing cultural ideas and social relations. This study contributes to production studies of the South by drawing attention to how global production practices are incorporated into local contexts. Specifically, it focuses on how technologies and their ensemble of production conventions influence aesthetic considerations. Finally, the study demonstrates how racial assumptions inherent in visual technologies and practices are negotiated by cultural producers in the Global South.

To address these concerns above, the paper uses a case study of casting women models in music video production in Accra. Following Dyer (2017), I am interested in the racialized “technological construction” of beauty as it pertains to how the valorization of light skin is reproduced and contested within the industry (p. 39). Light skin valorization in the late 2010s was explained in two main ways: the technical construction of beauty, rooted in perceptions about skin tone biases in imported visual technologies, and a commodified construction of beauty, which markets beauty to align with societal cultural preferences. For the latter, industrial practices commodify beauty to meet the target market. On the other hand, technical explanations relate to how light skin tones are more photogenic, easier to light, and compatible with color grading software presets.

This paper draws on a selection of interviews and participant observation and forms part of a larger project on Ghanaian hip-hop, known as hiplife, between 2015 and 2018. At the time, cultural producers observed a widespread perception of light skin bias in the video industry, particularly in casting lead models. However, some were actively challenging these biases. To set the contextual stage, I begin with a brief background on light skin valorization in Ghana, discussing the relationship between beauty and race. Next, I examine how racial assumptions have influenced the development of visual reproduction technologies and their conventions. Subsequently, I provide an analysis of the casting choices of women models and their connection to light-skin valorization and technological practices.

Light skin valorization in Ghana

Craig (2006) suggests that we consider beauty as a “gendered, racialized and contested symbolic resource,” in which there can be multiple competing standards of beauty at any particular moment (p. 160). In this way, beauty standards and their application operate within specific social contexts and are closely tied to the power dynamics within that society. For instance, scholars have noted that beauty rituals, such as skin lightening, offer insight into local ideologies of race, where value is attached to whiteness (Asante, 2016; Pierre, 2012). Consequently, equating light skin with beauty reveals global racial ideologies (Blay, 2010). Asante (2016) has proposed the idea of “glocalized whiteness” to help understand these local configurations of whiteness. For him, attention should be given to the “embodied intersectional performance of whiteness through the local discourse used to describe light skin and whiteness such as skin toning” (Asante, 2016: 5). Skin whitening, as noted by Pierre (2012), is less about trying to be white and more about trying to be less black or dark. She reminds us that today’s whitening practices are also rooted in the contemporary cosmetics industry, with its effective marketing. Chemicals and cosmetics for skin whitening can be traced back to ancient Greece, where the use of white lead (ceruse) was employed on the skin. It is important to note that historically, this desire and attempt to attain “real Whiteness” originated amongst white women, and only later transferred to black and brown women (Pierre, 2012: 113).

In Blay’s (2010) study of skin bleaching in Ghana, her participants associated light skin with cleanliness, beauty, attractiveness, femininity, modernity, and European ancestry. Even though the primary motivation for the women who bleach is to be perceived as beautiful, light skin in Ghanaian society enables women to gain access to specific social networks, attract attention, attract male desire, and enhance marriageability. Blay argues that women in Ghana who believe light skin is attractive are not necessarily fools or irrational, but are guided by the cultural and historical foundation associating light skin with whiteness, which becomes a source of social capital.

These studies have primarily focused on skin bleaching or skin toning to understand racialized beauty discourses and practices. In this study, I extend their work to draw attention to the way imported visual technologies and conventions have been implicated in the reproduction of light skin valorization. To that end, Thompson’s (2015) work provides a means to explore the relationship between light skin valorization and video technologies within the African diaspora. Thompson (2015) argues that skin bleaching became prevalent in Jamaican dancehall spaces as male performers sought to make their light-skinned bodies more visible and sensitive to video light. Video light refers to the use of bright video lights to record performances in dancehall spaces. Thompson argues that the dancehall performers who engaged in skin bleaching made their “bodies into photographic surfaces, which manipulate the reflection and absorption of light” (p. 114). As such, Thompson suggests that skin bleaching within the context of video light is not only a response to visual technology but also itself a form of visual technology. However, recent technological advancements have accommodated a wider range of skin tones. Yet, production practices, such as lighting styles, remain intertwined with cultural assumptions developed from Western aesthetic traditions, including Renaissance paintings (Sung, 2022). Additionally, light skin valorization persists in Ghanaian society, as evidenced by recent alarming reports about pregnant women taking “bleaching pills” to ensure their babies emerge light-skinned (Ghana News Agency, 2022: para 1). While light skin valorization can be traced to racialized colonial practices and ideas, its contemporary presence is most visible in various sectors such as the cosmetic and media industries. As Thompson’s (2015) insight demonstrates, understanding visual technologies and the valorization of light skin helps us examine how casting choices based on skin tones not only reflect local beauty standards, but also the negotiated use of video technologies and attendant conventions.

Visual technologies and race

The use of European visual technologies in Africa dates back to 1839 in Egypt (Gordon, 1997). Eventually, they became tools of empire used to categorize humanity along racialized logics to legitimize racism and colonial exploitation. For instance, Landau (2002) argues that colonial photographic representation of so-called tribesmen froze African life in a traditionalism that masked the exploitative relationship between the Africans and Europeans. In the case of colonial images from Namibia, Gordon (1997) has argued that these staged images of the so-called “Bush life” were likely also due to the technological limitations of the cameras, such as their bulkiness, unreliability, and limited capacity for long-range filming. In other words, the materiality of the technology influenced how and what was captured, in a way that reinforced existing colonial racial ideas.

The early history of photography reveals how the technology developed with light-skin bias, which produced unflattering images of non-white people (Dyer, 2017; Roth, 2009; Winston, 1985). Roth (2019) argues that the “recognition of the diversity of photo subjects was not a consideration in camera design or lab practices until the mid-nineties” (p. 296). As Winston (1985) argues too, technologies are not simply neutral tools but ideological cultural expressions. For instance, Roth (2009) observes that the chemistry for dyes and film stock was initially developed with a bias for white skin tones due to their high reflectivity. Kodak, the leading manufacturer in North America at the time, largely targeted the white market segment within a segregated political environment. More recently, other technologies, such as digital beauty filters, have been criticized for their discriminatory design, which privileges light skin tones (Riccio et al., 2024).

Over the years, to address the light skin tone biases, compensatory practices and technological improvements have been developed. One example is the development of special lighting methods for Black skin and experiments in color balancing to address contrasting skin tones within the same screen frame. According to Roth (2009), Kodak redesigned its film emulsions because of complaints about graduation pictures and class photos with students of different skin tones in the same frame. The other factors included complaints from chocolate and furniture makers, as well as the desire to impact the Japanese film stock market.

Cultural preferences for skin tone representation exist in different societies. In the early 1950s, when Kodak researchers tested portraits of a young white woman, the judges who assessed the prints preferred an image that seemed pale in relation to the original subject—“a whiter shade of white” (Winston, 1985: 121). Roth (2009) notes that to address local skin tone preferences, Japanese televisions exported to North America and Europe were calibrated to the preferred color temperatures of those markets. Relatedly, Avle (2022) also observes that “Tecno phones are where ‘the beauty of blackness’ was first introduced to consumers” (p. 1480). She argues that since its inception, Transsion positioned the phones “as specially crafted for dark-skinned subjects” (p. 1480). This is relevant to considering how and where Ghanaian cultural producers purchase camera equipment, since Western camera firms have historically paid limited attention to African markets. For instance, Canon Central and North Africa was established as recently as 2016.

Racialized biases are not only built into the visual technologies but also attendant lighting conventions and styles (Greenhalgh, 2020). In Dyer’s (2017) genealogical examination of movie lighting, he argues that “doing something special” to light Black skin implies the notion of “departing from a white norm” (p. 98). For instance, in apartheid South Africa, the Polaroid ID-2 camera, used to produce passbook photographs, was equipped with an added boost button and an extra flash to enable the photography of dark skin (Morgan, 2006). Dyer (2017) also reveals that, historically, the reason for “backlighting, in addition to keeping the performer clearly separate from the background, was that it ensured that blonde hair looked blonde,” since the orthochromatic film stock made yellow look dark (p. 92). Now, backlighting is simply part of conventional movie lighting approaches. Shabazz (2005) also notes that the US sitcom lighting practices, which had become standard by the 1950s, did not work for the African American actress Diahann Carroll. As the star of one of the first Black sitcoms, Julia, the high-key lighting whitened Carroll’s light-brown complexion, which Shabazz describes as “Black dilution” (p. 157). The historical examples discussed demonstrate how contemporary visual technologies can reproduce racial hierarchies and support exploitative relations.

Video production in Ghana

Before proceeding, it is worth discussing video movies, as they are one of the direct precursors to the contemporary music video production scene in Ghana. Some features common to both sectors include technological experimentation, informality, a significant presence of self-taught cultural producers, and the valorization of light skin (Garritano, 2013; Nikoi, 2025). Film production began in West Africa in 1946. In 1949, the Colonial Film Unit (CFU) established a training school in Accra for West African students to produce instructional films and shoot newsreel-type videos of local events. Smyth (1988) notes that CFU African film units employed George Pearson and William Sellers’ approach to so-called “primitive audiences” (p. 287). Their filmmaking approach required simplistic content, slow pacing, and strong image continuity because they assumed understanding moving images was learned. The filmic techniques were not to exceed the viewers’ experiences, while montage, flashbacks, and magnification were to be avoided.

By the time of independence in 1957, Kwame Nkrumah, the first president, had nationalized film production. The Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC) owned filmmaking equipment, controlled film stock importation, trained and employed filmmakers, and supported the establishment of the National Film and Television Institute in 1979. It also owned and operated cinemas. GFIC aimed to use cinema for education and modernization of the citizenry, as well as defining and celebrating traditional values, developing a unified national consciousness, and challenging stereotypical representations of Africans and Africans abroad. It also attempted to Africanize filmmaking by drawing on oral storytelling traditions.

Fast forward to the 1980s, due to the economic crisis and the expensive film celluloid, the relatively less expensive video technology was adopted by self-taught filmmakers. Shot on a VHS home video camera and released in 1987, Zinabu was one of the first video movies to ignite “the video boom” (Haynes, 2007: 2). It was directed by William Akuffo, a self-taught filmmaker who worked as a projectionist (Haynes, 2007). Many cultural producers were entrepreneurs who imported and exhibited pirated foreign films and television shows. Later, they transitioned to making their own films. At the same time, the state had decreased its support of and control over the filmmaking process. Yet, these new filmmakers attracted hostility from the filmmaking establishment, which criticized them for their low technical quality and for portraying Ghanaian life as dominated by juju (magic/spirituality) and witchcraft (Garritano, 2013). Nonetheless, video production operated and flourished outside the official filmmaking establishment (Garritano, 2013; Haynes, 2007).

When it comes to the music video production scene, accounts are scarce, with limited mentions in scholarship on African video movies and music. Yet, it is an important space for experimentation and training for numerous cultural producers, as music videos are short, quickly produced on a relatively limited budget, and widely circulated. One of the notable figures in the early aesthetic of Ghanaian hip-hop music videos was Abraham Ohene Gyan. He was born in Ghana but raised in the UK, and has a background in graphic design and video production. He worked for PEC-Video SoHo, London, where he showcased and installed video production equipment. Incidentally, SoHo housed the Colonial Film Unit. While in film school, Ohene Gyan directed his first professional music video for Wayne Marshall’s G-Spot, which aired on MTV Base UK. In the early 1990s, PEC sent him to Ghana to install equipment for a client. He quickly became involved in video making, shooting advertisements, and his first Ghanaian hip-hop music video, Aden, for the group Talking Drums. He also shot several of the early music videos for another pioneer of hiplife music, Reggie Rockstone. Ohene Gyan, influenced by Yo MTV Raps, became involved in transforming the format of the youth entertainment show Smash TV, which featured music videos. Today, Ghana has music-focused TV stations such as 4SyteTV and 3Music TV. Music videos are also regularly featured on Ghanaian television stations. 4Syte TV has even established a music video awards show.

Generally, the scholarship on African music videos is few and far between. Scholars from diverse backgrounds in literature, communication, and film have adopted a textual approach in several African music video studies (Dokotum, 2016; Kidula, 2011; Rens, 2024). These studies have explored music videos in their televisual and post-televisual phases. Recently, Femi Eromosele has published multiple studies on Nigerian music videos exploring topics such as musicians drawing on the city of Lagos’s affective capital for self-promotion (Eromosele, 2023); audience parodies of viral music videos (Eromosele, 2021); and music videos as spaces of political critique (Eromosele, 2022). Many of these studies have given scant attention to the role of directors, their production practices, and how that informs the music video. Notable examples include Askew (2009), who made music videos as part of their ethnographic study in Tanzania, revealing how the limited editing facilities required filming in a single take. Ekdale (2017) interviewed directors in his study of Kenyan music videos to understand the creative frictions between directors and artists over the video’s concept. Extending this, Nikoi (2025) draws on new mobilities to understand how frictions between rappers and directors can slow or halt the materialization of creative vision in the video production process.

Casting, beauty, and race

To understand the valorization of light skin in the music video industry, the context in which casting occurs must be examined. The data used in this section are drawn from a larger project that examined the hiplife music and music video production in Accra between 2015 and 2018. The study broadly examined how video production practices informed the representation of success, modern life in postcolonial Ghana, as well as the articulation of race and gender in production practices. With Institutional Review Board clearance from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 98 cultural producers were interviewed in person in Accra. However, this paper draws on a subset of 26 interviews with directors, models, model organizers, rappers, dancers, editors, filmmakers, and others involved in the music video production. My interviews with these cultural producers were tailored to ascertaining their creative processes, motivations, and perceptions of problems in the music video sector. Assumed names have been used for those participants who consented to be interviewed anonymously. Participant observations were also conducted at six music video production sets, where I sometimes served as a behind-the-scenes photographer and even featured in a music video. The study also draws on texts such as news stories and media interviews of Ghanaian cultural producers discussing their participation in music and video production. NVivo was used to analyze interview transcripts. Themes were developed around how skin tone informs casting decisions for models and perceptions of light skin valorization in the music video industry.

Music video production remains male-dominated, with directors, cinematographers, and other crew members predominantly men, except for make-up artists, who are primarily women. All the commercially active music video directors I interviewed were men. The directors included both high-profile and emerging practitioners. They came from diverse backgrounds, including filmmaking, advertising, fashion, graphic design, sound engineering, and music. About half of the directors I interviewed had formal training in filmmaking, while the other half were self-taught, having received some training from established directors such as Pascal Aka, Nana Asihene, and Big OJ. The self-taught directors also relied on YouTube videos and began shooting videos for emerging artists. Cameras used ranged from iPhones to Red cameras or Black Magic. The tools employed for post-production included Davinci, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and REDCINE-X PRO.

In my interviews, casting primarily involved selecting women models, as the majority of the songs are about heterosexual romance and love interests. Light-skinned women have frequently been featured and praised for their beauty, in songs that often focus on women. An example of this genre is Kofi Kinata and 2wise’s song titled Obaa Korkor (2 Wise ft. Kofi Kinata, 2014), which translates as fair/ light-skinned woman. In the song, the artists sing about a light-skinned woman who is “the kind of girl every man needs.” A more recent example is Drixxel’s 2025 song, Light skin girl. Typically, directors rely on model agencies, or select models they have already worked with, or they directly reach out to women on social media, such as Instagram. The artists will sometimes provide models, often their friends. Several women models are students in tertiary institutions who do music videos part-time. Sometimes auditions are held, but often the models’ pictures are sent to the artists or directors for selection. Most of the directors noted that model selection was primarily driven by the song or its genre. Hiplife dominated music videos in 2015, and by 2017, it was Afrobeats. Other casting considerations included physical appearance, performance on camera, with particular focus on the model’s confidence and ability to follow instructions, and working well with others. The directors noted that they tended to scrutinize women’s physical appearance more closely than men’s. They considered characteristics such as a pretty face and clear skin. The casting decisions for female models reveal widespread perception that the industry has a preference for light-skinned women models. Two main reasons help explain this: technical considerations rooted in perceptions of light skin bias in imported visual technologies, and the ways in which beauty is marketed to align with perceived cultural preferences of the society.

Commodified construction of beauty: Meeting the beauty cultural preferences

The prevalence of light-skinned women in music videos in Ghana is explained by situating the research question within societal beauty preferences. In my interviews, most women models acknowledged that usually lighter-skinned women were chosen for the lead roles. Adwoa, a light-skinned model, noted that she rarely auditions and is typically called to appear in videos. She stated: “They call you and say, ‘Maybe I need a girl who is medium size and who is fair.’” She explains: “I don’t know why they choose the light skin over dark skin. But when it comes to something about slave trade, something very archaic, something very African then they look for very dark girls.” As several directors informed me, casting women deemed attractive is often motivated by the fact that the songs focus on romantic interests. Since culturally light-skinned women, preferably those with curves, are often recognized as attractive, they become the ideal persons to cast in videos. Adwoa’s comments about dark skin depictions echo comments from Nigerian actress Stella Damasus. In discussing why Nigerians struggle to secure Hollywood roles, she notes that in meetings with agents and managers, she was told “we want an African to be very dark, that’s the kind of African that we are used to, we’re not used to your kind of African” (Pulse Nigeria, 2022: 12:20 minutes).

Some cultural producers noted that the industry’s light-skinned valorization has caused some women to lighten their skin. As Yaa, who recruited models for music videos, stated, “most girls have started toning their skin with creams and soaps.” The Ghanaian actor, Martha Ankomah, recounts that the pressures in the movie industry for actors to be light-skinned led some to bleach. She states:

If you’ve been watching Ghanaian movies for some time. . ., you remember if you were not really a fair person, you are not a star. . .. I remember a producer telling me that. . .. I’m too black, and he said. . . ‘when we put the light on you, you won’t shine’ . . .because of that pressure, most of my colleagues then . . . started bleaching. (Albert Ocran, 2025: 31:28 minutes)

Thompson’s (2015) work in Jamaica reveals similar bleaching practices amongst dancers attempting to be visible for the video light. The insight from this work is that the skin itself has evolved into a technology that allows it to be more sensitive to video light.

The construction of beauty within the music video sector is largely in the hands of the directors and artists. Awo, a mixed-race model, told me that after watching a recent music video in which she featured, she realized there was another light-skinned model. She reminds me that this particular director is “obsessed with light skin.” Earlier, when I asked her which type of women are preferred, she responded, “Oh, they like using girls like me, light-skin girls.” When I enquired if she was conscious of the connotations associated with her light skin in Ghana, she answered:

Sometimes it annoys me, especially if I am in a video and all the other girls are also light skin. I feel bad that I am part of that. Because it’s awkward, it’s not good. . . .Because I am not trying to encourage girls to bleach and become like me.

In this case, she had no say in who else was cast and did not have a say in the final video before it was released. Awo also makes connections between media representations of light skin valorization and skin bleaching.

While possessing light skin may enhance opportunities to be featured in videos, it leaves some cultural producers second-guessing their talent. For instance, Awo hoped that the reason she was invited to feature in videos was because of her work ethic and acting skills. She stated: “I was always thinking, oh, I am good at acting. . . I am good on set. . . I have good work ethics, that is why they are working with me but who knows maybe all along because I was light skin.” Models are not the only ones, a dancer informed me, “honestly, I am fair too, and feel like that’s another reason why people pay attention to me.” She adds, “. . . I feel like that should not be the main reason for wanting me on camera. It should be about what I am doing and not how I look.” Broadly speaking, the more beautiful a woman is considered to be, the better their chances are when competing for resources such as employment, education, and even potential spouses (Blay, 2010).

The societal preference for light skin is closely connected to the commercial imperatives of music videos. When I asked Yevu, a rapper, about the significance of skin color in casting, he stated that it was “99% important.” He adds, “any music video you’ve seen, any front row girls are light-skinned.” When I quizzed why, he responded:

I have no idea it’s just a trend I am following. I don’t know the philosophy behind. I have no prejudice against dark skin girls or whatever, but it is a stereotype, and unfortunately, that is what the audience has grown accustomed to and are expecting. So deviating from it based on your personal whatever reasons is going to cost you with the mileage of that video, cos people are not going to latch onto it as much as they would if your lead female was more of a Yvonne Nelson than a Lydia Forson kind of thing.

Numerous directors informed me that artists typically requested light-skinned women models for their music videos. As Tawiah, a director, noted, “they really like light-skin girls, very beautiful faces and all that.” When I asked Baaba, a personal assistant who sometimes works as a producer on set for a prominent director, what was essential in selecting women, she immediately responded, “the color.” For her, light-skinned women arrested attention, thereby ensuring that the music video was not “dull.” According to her, they look for “light skin girls, white girls, dark girls, not really that dark, but girls with swag. . .”

Returning to Yevu’s explanation, one observes that light skin valorization was primarily based on business considerations. Video creators are interested in what will make their videos more appealing to viewers. For Yevu, selecting light-skinned women aligns with the audience’s expectations. Since music videos are commissioned by artists, they can significantly influence their creative direction (Nikoi, 2025). From a promotional standpoint, beautiful women help market your video, song, and artist persona. Since the hiplife industry is also male-dominated, the ability to feature attractive women also signifies male success. Braggadocio in hip-hop is often linked to flashy cars and attractive women, who are predominantly light-skinned.

The foregoing industrial self-theorizing converges on a cultural explanation, wherein light-skinned women are deemed more attractive. For the rapper, it becomes a way of meeting consumer expectations. For models, light skin becomes a form of capital that enables them to access roles in music videos. In this way, this construction of beauty is commodified, identifying the cultural preferences of the target market and shaping representations accordingly. Consequently, women who conform to conventionally beautiful norms will have increased access to leading roles in music videos. Nonetheless, the cultural explanation is closely tied to technical aspects, particularly from the perspective of some directors, cinematographers, and editors.

Technological constructions of beauty

At the time of my interviews, the technical considerations that inform light skin preferences primarily revolved around the perception that light skin tones looked better on camera and were easier to light and edit. One director even noted that there appears to be a tendency for videos to be overly bright, which overexposes the dark skin. He referred to this as “digital bleaching.” As noted above, there are cultural preferences for the way skin tones are represented on screen.

Some directors expressed the opinion that light-skinned tones looked better on video. In a discussion on this topic, Bah, an upcoming director with no formal film training and a background in graphic design, observed:

What I have come to realize is that when you are shooting a light skin person with camera they kind of seem to bright not just them but the whole picture, . . . rather than the dark people. So me I have this theory that the camera was made for white people. At least that is what I think. When they were making the first camera, they by all means test it. . .. I am not sure they tested it on a black person.

At the time of the interviews, he counted three music videos in his portfolio. He informed me that he takes an average of 3 days to shoot and 3 weeks to edit.

Another director echoes this sentiment but also remarks on the challenges in color grading in post-production. Kwame, a self-trained director, proudly claimed that he is “team light skin” when it comes to casting women. He also argues:

when the camera was made in China there was no black person available. . . They tested it on white people. All the presets, all the programs- they tested it on white people. So if you want to use on a black person you have to light extra. . .. Light skin people are cool. They are photogenic.

He describes the challenges with color grading: “you put the preset on a light skin person and its fine, put it on a dark skin person and it’s too dark.” For him, “the dark person’s skin is never even,” and in postproduction, it becomes more evident when the image is brightened. As such, his solutions to these challenges included using extra lights and a general preference for light-skinned models. At the time of the interview, he had been making videos for about 4 years, and his original focus was on editing music videos before he began shooting and directing.

Another video editor, Yaw, whose original background was in graphic design and who works for a well-known video production house states: “when you are grading dark people it is a bit difficult . . .. dark color in itself doesn’t reflect color that much” however “white people you just touch them a little and they look very nice.” For him, this challenge is inevitable because “the whites designed the software, and definitely it will go in their favor.” However, he generally doesn’t perceive these biases as much of a problem. For him, grading is well-supported by how well-lit the video is.

Director Sefakor, who has formal film training and experience working on music videos in North America, recalls how the techniques he had employed there for capturing skin tones and grading were not entirely applicable for shooting in Ghana. He notes, “some of my grading techniques that I would use on white, I didn’t realize how bad it was until I started using it on black people.” He adds, “I stopped using it because like the way it works on black people does not look good. Took me a while to realize that, so the way you have to light for black people is quite different.” Here, his western-trained filmmaking practices had to be adjusted for lighting and color grading in Ghana. To address these challenges, he notes, “you have to use gels all the time, you have to contrast a lot, and you need quite a bit of light. . .” The “Insecure” cinematographer, Ava Berkofsky, noted that during their experience in film school, “no one ever talked about lighting nonwhite people.” ⁶ Berkofsky also traces the turn to proper lighting of dark skin tones to the 2010s, the advent of the Arri Alexa, which shifted digital cinematography.

Additionally, some directors considered skin free of blemishes to be easier to edit because blemished skin was extra work they wanted to avoid. This can partly be attributed to production practices that require directors to also handle cinematography, editing, and color grading, which places considerable work on one individual. The remuneration is low, as directors are often interested in experimenting with music videos and building a portfolio to secure better-paying gigs, such as advertising or corporate documentary work.

From the foregoing, the light-skin biases are located in two technical moments: at the point of shooting with the camera itself, and in the post-production tools. In addition, the training of directors, cinematographers, or editors, whether formal or informal, reveals perceptions about skin tone biases in the technologies they use. Some cultural producers relied on YouTube tutorials, which mostly featured white video makers with white subjects. As a wedding photographer in Ghana in the early 2010s, who also consumed a lot of tutorials from the West, I recall struggling to get the same effects I was studying when working with dark-skinned people. Presently, there is limited tutorial content made by African cultural producers.

Nonetheless, many directors contend that if you were skilled, it should not be a problem to light and edit darker skin tones. To that end, some directors have consciously sought to address the light skin bias in the industry even when the artists insist on it. As Togbe Gavua of Abstrackte, trained in Canada, stated, “chale me I legit even ignore some big artist sake of he want light skin woman for en video. . .” He turned down the opportunity to work with a big-name artist because they insisted on featuring light-skinned women in their music videos. He told me he deliberately wanted to address the problem of light skin valorization and bias. He stated: “so I have been putting effort to choose dark skin.” Other directors push back by not considering light skin tones as a factor in casting models for their videos. Directors are not the only ones pushing back. Yaa, the model organizer informed me that she endeavors to select models with diverse skin tones for casting requests. She states, “most often they do ask for light skin girls instead of the dark skin. . .. I don’t understand the situation. Why, we are all blacks and they always ask for the light skin. . … on my side I do mix them with the black and white.” To be sure, these efforts at skin tone diversity appear to be motivated by a racial consciousness that understands the harms of light skin valorization. Yet, a critical examination also reveals that it may be motivated by the commodified trend which claims to celebrate “melanin” to a market segment more racially aware. As one artist and director noted, “now people are trying to break the norms and be like all melanin pro . . . but even then it’s like it’s still no different in a way. It’s still selling sex. . ..” For this cultural producer, the hypersexualized representations render the diversity in skin tone a superficial gesture. A filmmaker, Akua, offers a similar reflection on casting calls. She states:

Are you fair in complexion? Do you have a nice body shape?. . . it’s so demeaning, you know. . . .apply if only you think you have all these qualities and you’re beautiful. . . Ok, so what happens to the dark skin babes? What happens to our dark skin sisters who are still beautiful?. . .but at the end of the day, even if you get picked. . . They are not going to depict you in any nice way. You’re just going to shake your ass.

Akua’s question, “[w]hat happens to our dark skin sisters who are still beautiful?” brings to mind the consequences of racialized discourses and practices of beauty. Taylor’s (2016) ideas about black invisibility draw attention to presence, which refers to how spaces and practices exclude black people and their cultural productions.

Conclusion

In this study, I have demonstrated how the valorization of light skin within the music video industry in the 2010s was reproduced and challenged. The industrial self-theorizations offered to explain this preference are connected to the commodified construction of beauty, which meets the cultural preferences of the target market, and technical considerations rooted in perceptions about the light skin biases in imported visual technologies. On the former, since light skin valorization remains an enduring phenomenon, promotional forms like music videos tap into it to help market their videos, songs, and artist personas. From a technical perspective, some Ghanaian cultural producers’ self-theorizing suggests that their cameras, software, and techniques are more effective at representing white or light skin tones. In fact, these technologies are sometimes calibrated to match the color balance preferences of target markets. As such, these concerns have implications for many cultural producers who source their equipment from Europe and North America. For a long time, the visual technology companies have had a limited presence in Africa.

Overall, this study contributes to the scholarly literature on production studies of the South by highlighting how cultural producers in Africa negotiate the use of imported visual technologies and their often-unrecognized cultural biases. It calls for understanding light skin bias as a production of colonialism and racism in the modern-day beauty industry, and also in technologies and attendant conventions used in representational practices. Consequently, the post-independence efforts to Africanize film production are still needed to unsettle these visual technologies, which have often assumed whiteness as a starting point. In other words, I argue that these technologies and their attendant conventions also need to be Africanized to cater to the diverse range of dark skin tones present on the continent. Future studies should examine how advancements in skin tone diversity in contemporary technologies are shifting African video production practices, such as lighting and color grading.