Greg Kulis- Paper Trails

I believe that the message of the song Paper Trails by Joey bada$$ is that money is the motive behind the majority of people in our society and that causes problems like people being selfish and putting finances before others because it makes their life easier. Joey is communicating this message to his decently large fan base of younger people to let them know that there’s more to life than money. He often preaches good morals like this in a lot of his songs. The music video is shot in Brooklyn, where Joey is from and it shows scenes of different people hustling for money in various ways because as he says “it’s the root of all people”. Also it’s all shot in black and white and I believe this is to give a depressing feel or image to the song because it’s sad that this is what our society has come to. 

I’d say the intended audience is mainly for young people who make up most of his fan base and really anyone who finds money as their main motive in life. I think this song is an accurate representation of our society, especially locally, because we are all pushed to go get good jobs to afford the nice things that we want in the future. No one ever talks about more important things in life like reaching self actualization or trying to make the world a better place and leaving your mark. I won’t really do anything with this story but I know that my parents raised me to believe that money is just a concept and you can’t let it take over your life so I will carry that moral with me for the rest of my life.