“Like Che Guevara with bling on, I’m complex.” Jay Z, “P.S.A”
If I ever got the chance to ask JAY-Z for a jewel of wisdom (not on one of those $50,000 lunch dates Twitter likes to debate) I would ask about his definition of winning.
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In a magazine interview from a few years after the beef with Nas was buried, Hov said something to the effect of: “it’s better to love to win than to hate to lose,” (this was right before all content was SEO-ready, and I can’t remember what magazine published it, so let’s pretend for a second the person on the other side of your screen can be trusted).
His rationale was that those driven by the negative feeling of losing would stoop to any level to avoid it; But he believed, on the other hand, those driven by the positive feeling of legitimate success will rise to unimaginable heights to achieve victory.
I found it funny that, around the same time, Nas said, “It’s cool to love to win, but it’s better to hate to lose/There’s only one Nas, bout a hundred thousand yous,” on Rich Boy’s “Ghetto Rich (Remix).”
It’s up to you decide if JAY or Nas won their proverbial war of words, but with much larger battles on the immediate horizon, their polar philosophies both reveal a tangible path to hedging America’s crooked odds.
But, as Sorry To Bother You Director Boots Riley recently told The NY Times: “JAY-Z is saying: “You can do this, I’m trying to give you game. And it ends up explaining poverty as a system of bad choices.”
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The same dynamic that makes Nas and JAY essential exists in the political and philosophical differences between Barack Obama and Donald Trump‘s presidential campaigns and administrations. So if we’re looking for culture warriors capable of defeating The Donald, JAY-Z and Beyoncé have as good a track record as anyone of out-witting corporate America without compromising their identities.
”I’m the ghetto’s answer to Trump, I’m cancer to the Hampton. $40 million a wop, ransacking mansions,” a younger Hov bragged on his third volume, Life And Times of S. Carter.
With recent power moves like the purchase and development of Tidal, the production of social justice-themed documentaries and the signing of Van Jones to Roc Nation’s newly-created “social activism” division, JAY and Bey appear to be planting the seeds to harness the world’s powerful current force: media. And their track records and tracks show that they won’t fumble the bag like Trump did (and continues to do daily).
After publicly offing his ego on 4:44 and showing up to see it buried at the Grammys, JAY-Z’s shots at 45 on “Top Off” foreshadow the final act of that corporate takeover he always talks about.
The Carters clearly have the tools to coup the current administration and secure a rare win for the lost tribe. But do (Bonnie & Clyde, Martin & Malcolm) Hov & Bey have to die martyrs to avoid becoming villains in the process?
JAY-Z, Future and Beyoncé’s “Top Off” is more than just your annual DJ Khaled smash; when you lean in and listen close, what initially seems like a codeine-cutter anthem for foreign cars and clubs transforms into a declaration of war: The only casualty? America’s Commander in Cheeto.
“All our shit real, too,” chuckles JAY before the beat drops, and him and the only FLOTUS we acknowledge post-Michelle commence to bodying, like cold-blooded serial bar killers, motivated by a higher cause than the industry-standard track.
Tucked between Future and Khaled’s high and low vibranium bursts, Hov and Bey spend a cool 1:55 in their collective pocket, checking down their every intent to Bonnie and Clyde the house White Supremacy built and put agent orange out with the trash; all with enough time to provide juice boxes and emotional nourishment and psychological protection.
The Carter’s bid for the washdedest throne isn’t based on emotions appeals or fake ads, even if much of their careers have been boosted by their rare distribution opportunities. Since the telecommunications act of 1996, and coincidentally(?), the year of Jay’s corporate debut. After almost a decade of flowing between the streets and beats, he incorporated his life and times into a now 22-year opus that both endorsed and contradicts the American Dream.
Queen Bey’s infamous Black Panther-themed Super Bowl performance was a clear sign that they’d found a new creative/corporate balance where doing good could be profitable. Still, both have been harshly criticized in the social justice space for commoditizing revolutionary ideas to benefit their lucrative business endeavors.
From Jay’s collaborations with Dead Prez and Mos Def to Bey’s proudly declared preference for Jackson 5 nostrils, they’ve gotten just as many side-eyes as salutes for their insistence on keeping it real while getting rich. Everyone from a hopeless presidential candidate to the great Harry Belafonte has questioned their sincerity as well as the ultimate impact of their pro-Black and anti-establishment media messaging — mainly because of the couple’s own deep roots in corporate capitalism is what makes their resistance possible. But is it time everyone stopped believing that activism and profitability must be mutually exclusive?
I’ve long believed The Carters’ talent for entrepreneurship and retail activism should be studied as a blueprint for the next generation of artists and activists, both of whom must maximize impact with minimal resources.
The world tries to force artists to make a choice between being rich and being real. JAY-Z and Beyoncé are hailed as pop culture deities because of their rare abilities to defy that unfair false-binary. Their unapologetic independence made each of them extremely successful in their individual realms before they joined forces — and together, they were just crowned Hip Hop’s first billionaire couple. But ever since the independent woman and shameless dope man made it official in 2003, they’ve exceeded expectations and understanding in every challenge they’ve taken on.
Both members of pop culture’s first billion-dollar couple have always been as unapologetically real as their mainstream ambitions would allow. A young JAY rapped cockily about rocking a du-rag to the MTV awards as a testament to his authenticity. And from “Bootylicious” to Lemonade, Bey has done everything short of releasing a luxury bonnet line to project a royal image of Black American femininity on the mainstream media stage. But many question how much their woke symbolism matters as our people are being shot dead in the streets and a geriatric reality star works daily to push America back to the 1950s.
“And I come with du-rags to your so-called awards… like fuck y’all all.” Jay Z, “Hova Song”
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Looking to celebrities like The Carter-Knowles Clan as potential leaders in the resistance may be expecting too much — they don’t owe the world anything more than the dreams they sell — but they may be the few among us with the tools necessary to significantly impact the globe’s most pressing threat: A leader no human should feel proud about taking an alien race to meet.
The idea of the starving artist or embattled revolutionary is romantic to most. Many see money as a corruptive force and project their insecurities on those who are skilled with it. Baseless Illuminati speculation and residual distrust from music’s long history of artistic exploitation have cast doubt on the couple’s true ambitions and allegiances. Most understand that it takes assets to challenge social systems. But is it possible for anyone to maintain their revolutionary integrity while securing the essential resources of a revolution?
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If the struggle for social justice is a literal war, the resistance won’t win without warriors capable of countering Donald Trump’s finely-tuned Jim Crow poli-tricks. We probably shouldn’t be looking to pop culture idols to save our world, but I’d still ask JAY how many billions him and Bey would need to win the revolution. Not that I have it to invest, I just know the smart money’s been on the Carters since the days I was stealing their music from Limewire. And the pirate in me has been holding out hope that they are compulsively hoarding dead presidents because they plan on pulling an even greater heist than topping the Forbes list off drug money and soul music.
But even I have to remind myself they could just as well be narcissists of the same ilk as President Trump, selling a dream to the resistance while privately sipping champagne with the top one percent of the One Percent. It’s possible that studying their legacies for anything more than marketing genius is fruitless.
But who wants to believe that?
Retail Activism: Will Jay Z’s New Millennium Business Model Help Save the World From Trump’s Old World Order? was originally published on globalgrind.com
