There. I got my Fox News-like headline out of the way. I’m being hyperbolic, but I really do hate it. So if you are a Jay Z apologist, don’t read this.
When I first heard Jay Z (he had a press release to announce the dropping of a hyphen?) was going to perform “Picasso Baby”, his new track from Magna Carta Holy Grail (a wildly boring album), I groaned. I groaned because Jay Z has gained favor to such a degree, that makes haters like me seem like jealous miscreants. I’m not jealous, and I hate being lumped in with the jealous few. I just don’t think he’s good, and he comes off as a big ol phony, from a mass-market standpoint. The guy gets an 11 min special on HBO to perform a song in front of other actors, musicians, and little rich kids, and I am supposed to think I’m watching an event? An event so monumental that it brings the art world to the hip hop world? I think that’s what he wants us to think. However, I can’t get past the points of who he is. He exists as two completely different people. There is Jay Z the mogul. There is Jay Z the artist. I think Jay Z the artist died about 10 years ago, and what we’ve been left with is a man trying to continually tell us that he’s relevant because he says so.
If you went to an art gallery and were able to actually meet the artist of a painting you thought was pretty good, but then he told you it was easily the most important piece of work you’d ever see, you’d laugh at this person. You’d laugh because this person’s self-delusion is so sad its funny. That’s Jay Z to me. Of course rap is built on the tenets of rappers telling the audience how great they are yes, but Jay Z takes it a step further. He no longer says “I’m the best rapper.” He says, “I am this generation’s most valued icon. I exist in this world as a reminder to all that I am the height of success in this world and should be the model to follow. People will be singing my classics 100 years from now. Why? Because I’m Frank Sinatra.” That’s like the extreme version of giving yourself your own nickname. You don’t do it. In the world I like to live in, you don’t Inception people and define your legacy for them. You let the people decide your legacy. Jay Z is so consumed with seeming a certain way, that his music has suffered as a result.
Luckily, we live in a post-modern world, where you can call anything art, so of course Jay Z takes the opportunity to extend his legacy further. To me, this move is not genuine at all. Furthermore, the video is not really a performance art piece as much as it is a music video. Yes, music videos are, in their own way, art, but Jay has decided his video is more than that. It’s only more than that, because he said it is. Nothing happens in the video that you haven’t seen before. There are a few cameos (including cameos by Alan Cumming and Jim Jarmusch that killed me), but for the most part, it’s a longer video. Nothing more. However, he called the song “Picasso Baby” and rapped about how he is the new Picasso, so we associate him now with true art.
Ultimately, I don’t really like the last ten years of Jay Z, so I walk into this article with that bias, because I don’t think his music is that great, “Empire State of Mind” notwithstanding. I think he’s focused more on ensuring an enduring legacy, more than he’s made music that will actually endure. While I don’t really like Jay Z the artist, I really do like Jay Z the mogul. What he’s done for hip hop as an ambassador I think is great. I think that a lot of his diversification over the years by owning .5% of a basketball team, and becoming a sports agent is pretty cool too. I think he’s helped legitimize hip hop internationally. It’s been the most popular genre for a while and he deserves credit for that. He should be stepping back and finding new talent. He should be using his influence to find the next Jay Z, and not convince us he’s still the old one. Watching his HBO performance was proof that this is just a really old guy, trying to convince us he’s got new tricks. Not my bag baby.
You aren’t the next Frank Sinatra. You aren’t the next Picasso. You aren’t even the next you anymore.
Check out his “performance art” below and see for yourself. I welcome disagreements!
About Russ Stevens
Russ Stevens is an editor and writer at Rookerville and a guidance counselor at Nyack HS. He mostly writes about either loving or hating things. In his spare time, he performs Improv comedy with his troupe Priest and The Beekeeper and is a co-producer of their monthly variety show Pig Pile. He loves all the New York sports teams that are historically bad, and he hates lateness more than anything in the world.