8 thoughts on “Run the Jewels”

1. Just have to say I completely disagree with your reading of Watch the Throne. Of course there are many instances of braggadocio and mentions of wealth, but Jay and Kanye tackle a lot of very important topics on that album, like what it means to be black and rich. Just listen to “Murder to Excellence.” That song is in no way “mindlessly” celebratory of wealth, it questions just what exactly it means to be black and have a degree of privilege–how to reconcile that with the knowledge that every day black americans face systematic violence and yet also face the fact that you are only human and simply want to enjoy nice things. And in the end how that knowledge doesn’t allow you to simply escape into your wealth (As Kanye says: Every problem you had before this day is now done/ New crib, watch a movie cause ain’t nothin on the news/ But the blues… hit the mall, pick up some Gucci/ Now ain’t nothing new but your shoes”) Jay and Kanye are far more complex and nuanced than you give them credit for. “Murder to Excellence” also remains one of the most overtly political hip hop songs to break into the mainstream in the last 5 years. Jay raps “This is to the memory of Danroy Henry/ Too much enemy fire to catch a friendly/ Strays from the same shade/ Nigga, we on the same team/ Giving you respect, I expect the same thing,” and Kanye’s line “I feel the pain in my city wherever I go/ 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago” powerfully points out the hypocrisies of a country where urban violence has become so accepted that it is not even news anymore.

   1. This most recently reply was labelled as spam until I rescued it. Makes me wonder how many good responses I’ve lost to that filter…

      I’ve never spoken with Chuck D, but I have spoken to Killer Mike at length, and trust me that the guy is a formidable intellect. I don’t think there are many people in the industry (esp. not Kanye or Jay Z) who could hang with him in a debate. What’s more, he’s a real student of the genre and I am very certain that he understands Jay Z and Kanye–I also know that he admires their success. Maybe there’s jealousy (I’m not so sure, though), but also a real acknowledgement of their accomplishments. I think his and Chuck D’s criticisms are rooted in a well-rounded understanding of the genre and a perspective that their age allows for.

      I think Kanye and Jay Z are doing more harm than good these days, and it’s a shame. I do acknowledge their talent, but not their shameless consumerism. To answer your question, the older men that I know don’t talk about watches and cars, even if they own expensive ones. At some point you realize that talking about wealth and possessions reveals more about your insecurities (or inability to converse on other subjects) than your success.

      All that said, I am impressed with your arguments, esp. the desire to support them lyrically. There are people in this field who still haven’t figured out how to do that!

      1. Thanks for reading my very long post, yeah I don’t mean to belittle Chuck D or Killer Mike and their understandings of hip hop. Obviously I have a lot of respect for both of those two, and the thing is I absolutely agree with their critiques of Jay and Kanye’s consumerism. I guess, just to reiterate, my problem with their critiques is that they critique the album as a whole, not the specific strands of consumerism within the album. In other words, I think it’s simplistic and, more importantly, detrimental to say Watch the Throne endorses mindless consumerism. That album actually tackles issues of wealth from multiple viewpoints–it isn’t a straightforward endorsement, it’s far more complicated than that. In addition, by dismissing the entire album in a blanket critique, so much that is constructive and good in that album is obscured and thrown away.

         I understand and respect what you’re saying about being embarrassed about bragging about watches at Jay’s age, but do have to say that I think every commercial for Rolex, BMW, etc., contradict what you’re maintaining though. Maybe middle-age men don’t TALK about their wealth in the same manner as Jay, but I think the commercials during every football game ever make it pretty clear what all men are thinking: I want nice, expensive things, and these things will improve my image and status among my peers. This isn’t an excuse, it’s just to say Jay isn’t exactly disseminating views that aren’t already being saturated throughout society through other, mainstream outlets.

         I think you raise a really important point about whether Kanye and Jay are doing more good than harm, but I have yet to be convinced that strands of consumerism in Jay and Kanye’s music is so dangerous as to nullify the impact of the radical ideas they advocate.

         But appreciate your threshing these ideas out with me, I think this topic is only going to grow in importance, especially as Jay and Kanye show no signs of slowing down.

2. Thank you for your comments. I think that your focus on a single song from the album says something, though I appreciate your reading and desire to engage the album/somg in meaningful ways. I admit that I have little time for either Jay Z or Kanye these days, but I’d also say that I didn’t give their collaboration a “reading”–more of an offhanded swipe 🙂

3. True, I did only focus on one song. However, I think it’s important to state that I could have gone with any number of songs of that album. “Otis”: “Welcome to Havana/ Smoking cubanos with Castro in cabanas/ Viva Mexico, Cubano/ Dominicano, all the plugs that I know/ Driving Benzes, wit’ no benefits/ Not bad huh? For some immigrants/ Build your fences, we diggin’ tunnels/ Can’t you see? We gettin’ money up under you.” “Who Gon Stop Me”: “This is something like the Holocaust/ Millions of our people lost/ Bow our heads and pray to the Lord/ Til I die I’ma fuckin’ ball/ Now who gon’ stop me?/ Who gon’ stop me huh?/ Who gon’ stop me?/ Who gon’ stop me huh?” (Portraying acquisition of wealth as a subversive action against a power structure that seeks to oppress people of color) “Gotta Have It”: (Kanye) Racks on racks on racks,/ Maybachs on backs on backs/ on backs on backs, (Jay) Who in that? (Kanye) Oh shit, it’s just blacks on blacks on blacks.” “That’s My B****”: “I mean Marilyn Monroe, she’s quite nice/ But why all the pretty icons always all white.” And especially, given your interest and work on the Pledge of Allegiance, “Made in America”: Jay-Z — “I pledge allegiance, uh, to my Grandma/ For that banana pudding, our piece of Americana/ Our apple pie was supplied through Arm & Hammer/ Straight out the kitchen, shh don’t wake Nana!/ Built a republic, that still stands/ I’m trying to lead a nation, to leave to my little man’s/ Or my daughter, so I’m boiling this water/ The scales was lopsided, I’m just restoring order” (presenting the extra legal economy–here drug dealing–as a means for achieving equality in a society where racisms stack the deck against people of color. Brilliant double entendre with the word “scales” here).

   Anyway, totally agree with you about moments of Jay’s new album being sleep inducing, and not a huge fan of Yeezus myself. But there are some subversive moments on both of those two albums as well, so they’re worth a couple listens in my opinion.

   1. OK, you are bringing it in your responses. I respect that. How do you explain, though, that you’ve got rappers like Chuck D touring the world and trashing the album or Killer Mike and EL P taking shots here in the USA? I don’t deny that there are glimmers of subversiveness, but how meaningful or credible are they when they are overshadowed by the rhetoric of excess, materialism, and misogyny? The album is called “Watch the Throne,” suggesting that Kanye and Jay Z are somehow royalty–and that’s tame in comparison to their self-deification elsewhere (is that a word?). Truth be told, there are dozens of rappers out there who are more talented.

      As I recently pointed out in my Atlantic article on sampling, the rules have changed, and people like Kanye and Jay Z can make music that most other people cannot. And yet it’s so mediocre, even with that competitive advantage, that I wonder why anyone bothers with them anymore. Honestly, Jay Z is older than I am…I’d be embarrassed if I were still talking about watches and cars. Why isn’t he?

      1. To start off, I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with my comments, so thank you. You raise a number of critiques in your last response, and so I want to go through them point by point.

         In regards to Chuck D and EL P and Killer Mike taking shots at Jay and Kanye, I think that is easily explained. My first response would be to say that Chuck D, EL P and Killer Mike, in their critiques of Watch the Throne as too commercial, simply haven’t understood Jay and Kanye’s music. No one who has given that album a close listen could make such a simplistic critique of it. It is far from a complete, uncomplicated celebration of wealth. I think my second post above goes some way in demonstrating that. My second response would be that jealousy could easily be a factor here. Especially if jealously clouded and altered their understanding of the album’s lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, I love Public Enemy. But that doesn’t mean Chuck D is right in this instance.

         Your next contention I want to break into two parts, because I think it is by far the most important issue at stake here. You characterize Watch the Throne as having “glimmers of subversiveness.” But the subversive elements in WTT are not “glimmers.” They are not random, scattered, and rare, but instead form some of the major themes of the album. Again, I think my second post above goes a little way in pointing that out. Furthermore, they are themes that form the cornerstone of Jay’s, and to a lesser extent, Kanye’s, entire body of work. Just listen to “Reasonable Doubt,” which is definitely Jay-Z’s best album (as Jay will tell you himself). That entire album is centrally concerned with exploring why those who deal drugs do so–both the base reasons, like greed, and reasons dictated by the coercive forces of a capitalist market place organized along racial lines–and the effects it has on the drug dealer, both good and bad (escape from poverty, the knowledge that that escape comes at a cost to other members of the black community). Or listen to the second and third verse of Kanye’s “All Falls Down.” These themes are not new, and they are not glimmers. They run throughout both artists’ body of works. Jay-Z even wrote a book, Decoded, to explain in a different medium what he was saying on “Reasonable Doubt” because 15 years later that story remained a buried counter-narrative. Look at Kanye’s first two verses on the second track of MBDTF, “Gorgeous”: “Penitentiary chances, the devil dances
         and eventually answers to the call of Autumn/ all of them fallin’ for the love of ballin’/ got caught with 30 rocks, the cop look like Alec Baldwin/ inter century anthems based off inner city tantrums/ based off the way we was branded/face it, Jerome get more time than Brandon/and at the airport they check all through my bag and tell me that it’s random/ but we stay winning, this week has been a bad massage/ I need a happy ending and a new beginning and a new fitted and some job opportunities thats lucrative/ This the real world, homie, school finished
         they done stole your dreams, you dunno who did it/ I treat the cash the way the government treats AIDS/ I won’t be satisfied til all my niggas get it, get it?”

         The second part of that contention is to question how credible these subversive statements are “when they are overshadowed by the rhetoric of excess, materialism, and misogyny.” My response here is it is a mischaracterization to say they are “overshadowed.” There is no doubt that they appear alongside celebrations of materialism and misogyny, but they are overshadowed only if we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Hip hop has many issues with violence, misogyny, homophobia, and celebrations of capitalist values. These are all components of hip hop that must be criticized. But, that is the point: we must listen to hip hop critically, and just because an artists says a bad thing, doesn’t mean they haven’t also said a good thing. It is poor and lazy analysis to dismiss an artist’s work because part of it furthers certain inequalities. We must criticize what is bad, and engage with what is constructive. In regards to misogyny, it is also important to remember that so much of “conscious rap,” a label which many artists like Talib and Mos Def reject themselves, traffics in another form of sexism, which is the “queens” part of the “bitches/queens” dichotomy. This narrative places african-american women on a pedestal, making them equally objects, if revered objects, demanding masculine protection. If we follow the model of “well they have sexist lyrics (or some other problem), so they’re no good at all,” then very little hip hop music would be worth examining. Public Enemy being a great example with their prominent antisemitism.

         Turning specifically to the materialism of Jay and Kanye, and addressing your point about their references to royalty, I have two responses. The first is that Jay and Kanye are not going to be the neat, uncomplicated revolutionaries people on the left want them to be. They are human beings, with all the complexity that brings. Like Jay says, “I’m like Che Guevara with bling on/ I’m complex.” Yes, I have strong critiques at times of Jay and Kanye’s rampant materialism. But they’re human; they’re not perfect, just like I’m not perfect. Yes, I dislike Jay’s focus on capitalist accumlation, but I do not think it dampens the power of his incredible insights and counter-narratives of inner-city life. My second response is of course Kanye and Jay compare themselves to royalty. Hip hop is, and always has been, about competition. Competition sits at the core of hip hop, and their characterization of themselves as royalty must also be read with this in mind. They’re saying they are the kings of hip hop, it’s a metaphor. The logic that sees their reference to royalty as somehow an egregious endorsement of mindless materialism also demands the conclusion that Jay and Kanye are royalists, who don’t believe in democracy. Lastly on this point, you state, “truth be told, there are dozens of rappers out there who are more talented.” But this strikes me as simply your opinion. In my opinion, Jay is the 4th best rapper ever (behind biggie, tupac, and nas). Kanye has single-handedly changed rap music with his production, and I think he is one of the most socially insightful rappers ever.

         Finally, I want to address the contentions in your last paragraph. As you say, the rules have changed with sampling and hip hop music. But again, I have to disagree with your opinion that Jay and Kanye’s music is “mediocre.” I think the wrong question to ask is, “this music is no good, why do people listen to it?” and the right one to ask is “what is it about this music that people see of themselves in it?” I had a professor who said many brilliant things, one of which was that so many people celebrated artists like Talib Kweli, who made your head bop with his lyrics, but what they didn’t understand was the thing that made groups like OutKast so genius was that they moved both your body and your head. He said never underestimate the importance of making someone’s body move, and allowing them to express themselves through dance. As a society we focus too much on the head, and not enough on the body. I think he was absolutely right. And from what I can see, Kanye and Jay, and so much hip hop music nowadays, still get people out on the dance floor. Lastly, I don’t think it’s fair to say it is “embarrassing” for Jay-Z to be talking about watches and cars. After all, isn’t that what so many older men talk about and spend money on? Indeed, isn’t the idea of getting a nice car and achieving a better life-style what most men and women work towards all their life? That’s not to say I endorse such an uncritical consumerism or capitalist norms, but just to say I don’t think Jay deserves to be singled out simply because he is expressing mainstream desires in a more public and open manner.

         So I’ve written a lot. I hope that at least some of it was interesting or made sense.

4. Whilst I agree with parts of this article, I still think Jay Z is a legend. Kanye West on the other hand is a complete idiot.

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