Jay-Z cites Basquiat and braves self-reflection in preparation for Decoded

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Jay-Z cites Basquiat and braves self-reflection in preparation for Decoded

This video excited me at the end of a long day, a day where I first woke up in despair wondering what now can I do with this book, does it really weigh on the synopsis? All 333 pages and four years of (immensely pleasurable) toil down to a synopsis? Just read the first page! Then I cheered up having come home after meeting about a potential role in a company that genuinely excites me for the first time in a long time, come what may. I came home then to read about a (hopefully very) different kind of book being released by a rap icon who even in his exalted position (contrary to my own, plebeian position) has to go through some very gimmicky connect the dots marketing in order to get buzz going about his book (find pages here and there on city streets and get clues to the ‘code’ of Jay-Z’s life, something like that.)

I never wanted to compromise, I never wanted to sell snake oil, but I do like business; I do get excited about process and value and solving a problem and ‘delighting’ people with interaction and seamless tools / objects that reduce conflict and make moments better within a fluxing society. I do embrace the exchange of goods and ideas. I love to write, need to write, but I also like business and innovation for it’s essence of experimentation and imagination. I have to admit, it’s become an all-out trek to get in a role where I don’t have to make sense of things that don’t make sense, a compromise I feel people make when they work in advertising. If you’re role is to make new not convince people that whatever they’ve got is worth more than it is, you can team up with your clients to solve a problem, make things that do things, and chart a better more communal and exalted experience – hell, maybe even stretch business to make life a little better for now – and for later – including evening the playing field so that the non-complacent talent that lies outside the grid can strut their stuff. I want to be paid for a problem addressed rather than a tap dance curtain call.

Looking back on how I started, I’ve retreated from the origins of my journey – but it was hip hop, without a doubt and nothing else but hip hop, that started me off looking at the ‘mash-ups’ of culture and in my time. I’ve watched hip hop come and go. That’s right. Come and go. I know people still rap and the industry chugs along scooping up none-the-wiser youth, but the hip hop I knew, the hip hop lords I evangelized, they are all turned to dust — yet in this video Jay-Z seems to find a way to be quietly reflective, analytical – something I would not have suspected and have not seen in a contemporary culture which refuses to describe itself in anything other than posturing terms. Honest self-awareness is antithetical to contemporary hip hop styling where the status quo is that there is no need to examine the excess, the hypocrisies of self expression in an age of embraced exploitation, self-aggrandizement, unchallenged money grubbing and LCD chart-chasing monetization of creativity. The ends of glitz and stardom justify the vapidity and disconnectedness. So good for Jay-Z. Enjoy this quiet reflection which elevates the conundrum of success in his world and thereby elevates the state of hip hop stardom to a much-needed acceptability of self-examination.

After writing this, I found an article in Slate that talks about Jay-Z’s art references (and also mentions Kanye Wests). The article talks about the specific artists he references and how the references are not just an extension of the bling bragging of talk of Escalades and iced out this and that (though partly) but that the identification comes from “Murakami and Hirst (who he raps about as well) make art that is largely about the markets they exist in and the wealth they generate.” The article goes onto explain, “whereas Hirst’s art mingles wealth and death, Basquiat’s career, which begins at about the same time as hip-hop itself, mingles fame and death.” The author says Jay-Z has realized “Andy Warhol’s vision of the artist-as-corporate-entity more completely than Warhol, with his Factory and roster of superstars, ever did. ” Jay-Z’s addressing the cautionary tale of those that created art that signified or mixed with their own wealth, a position that embodies Jay-Z’s art and his ‘ultimate (living) rap icon’ status. Read more here.

I started writing my novel grappling with the conflict between creativity and commerce and thought my book would be about that. It is and it isn’t. But I still haven’t solved the problem.

-chauncey zalkin