Rap in the Time of Cholera: a review of Watch the Throne
RYAN BRILES
You will never ride in Kanye West’s “other other Benz,” but somehow you’re glad he has it. Warren Buffet can ask to be taxed more, but West “only likes green faces.” With that simple, time honored, good ol’ fashioned American philosophy, Jay-Z and Kanye West provide a capitalist fantasy with their collaborative rapper studio album that sits at the end of this recession/depression rainbow like a Gucci pot of gold. The album was released on August 8th 2011 and sold over 400,000 copies in the first week, but what really makes Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne interesting is the unreal, unrelatable wealth in these verses. Money and what it can buy is basically old hat in hip hop, but the album is filled with upper class propaganda; Jay-Z confidently says “I’m looking like wealth” right before West declares the fact that he makes “luxury rap.”
So, why, in a rock bottom economy that is characterized by growing inequality and political deadlock, does a record like Watch the Throne become such a huge hit? Well, because capitalism is having a bad day and needs a good bedtime story. When you live in a world where people like Eric Cantor can say that America just doesn’t have enough cash to provide disaster relief for the victims of hurricane Irene, people might need a little reassurance. Spin magazine called Jay-Z and West’s wretched free market excesses elitist, narcissistic paeans to wealth that display a “relentless capitalism.” Watch the Throne highlights just how disgustingly obsessed America is with the rhetoric of capitalism and neo-liberalism. When Wall Street wakes up to disaster born on the fell wings deregulation, they can take a ride in that comfortable “other other Benz” and renew their faith. Jay-Z’s repeated references to his hard knocks childhood and drug fueled misadventures in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn are basically a 21st century, street wise version of Horatio Alger’s bootstrap narratives.
What we have here is a fashionable three ring circus that provides Romanesque distractions for the masses. Watch the Throne is free market escapism without the dogma of Ayn Rand (did anyone even see the Atlas Shrugged film adaptation?) So, are you not entertained? Well, you should be. Don’t you know how much this costs!?
The bottom line is that America is entertained and it’s the capitalism that does it. Every reviewer, from Sputnikmusic to Time magazine, comments on the ostentatious flaunting of wealth. Jay-Z, himself, stated that he has so many expensive works of art in his house that he can “see ‘em when [he’s] peeing” and expands on that confusing statement by adding “usually when you have this much taste you’re European.” But he’s extremely American and so is his capitalism. Who cares about missing tax revenue and social programs? He’s got great shoes and he wants to tell you about them. And, wait, you can have them to (for a limited time only) if you take advantage of this bootstrap offer.
When you get down to brass tacks, this is really just a cooler version of the Tea Party’s argument. That venerated free market will fix itself if you just have faith and are willing to work hard. West goes as far as to say that he might make his son “be Republican.” You don’t get much more explicit than that. He can spout off about George W. Bush, during hurricane Katrina, as much as he wants, but at the end of the day, he’s looking out for his bottom line. I mean, I guess he is from the “murder capitol where they murder for capital.” Maybe he should play for Rick Perry’s next “$2000 a plate” fund raiser.
So, what Jay-Z and Kanye West are telling us is that we can fill up that gaping hole in the budget (and our national conscious) by making some cash and buying some nice shit with it. Hell, that’ll drive up that consumer confidence index, right? Somehow it sounds better coming from Jay-Z than it does from Michelle Bachmann. But, it doesn’t really make any more sense. The best way to sum it up is with yet one more quote from West: “What’s Gucci my nigga, what’s Louie my killer, what’s drugs my dealer, what’s that jacket, Margiela?” I don’t even know what Margiela is and maybe that’s the whole point.
