allofhertwist

[allofhertwist]

Kingdom Coming of Age

JAY-Z 4:44 Roc Nation

So far in this podcast, Joe Budden is spot-on with some of his observations about Jay. And something in particular that he touched on—which I think got lost in the sauce, as it were, amid all the breathless chatter about Hov making amends for his alleged infidelities with Beyoncé (and 4:44 supposedly being a direct response/companion piece to Lemonade)—was the possibility that this album was also, in part, his apologia to hip-hop for steering it in such a soullessly corporatist direction starting in the late 1990s. Because I had actually forgotten, as a day-one fan since Reasonable Doubt, how much I had grown to despise him (for such dalliances with ur-capitalism) by, say, 1998.

Be clear: in 1996, outside of a small clique of NYC-based hustlers, fans of Orginal Flavor (these people actually exist?), or folks who either remembered him as "that skinny nigga on the boat," or were capable of making the unlikely connection between Jäy-Z and that kid in the Jaz-O video (who would later play hype man for Big Daddy Kane), nobody was checking for the man born Shawn Corey Carter. (And I, for the life of me, couldn't fathom why.)

He had, effectively, been rejected by every major label in North America. And even after starting up his own boutique label (with co-conspirators Dame Dash, Kareem "Biggs" Burke, and the aid of some bloody, brown-paper-bag money); securing high-profile guests (Mary J. Bilge, a then ascendant Foxy Brown, The Notorious B.I.G.); and crafting one of the most effortlessly lyrical, thematically cohesive rap albums ever to depict the day-to-day life of the hustler (with all the bright-eyed detail, nuance, mother wit, sarcasm, and gallows humor one would expect of a fully baked god's-eye rendering of such a life), the most it seemed to elicit was a halfhearted shrug, as it were, and a reluctant "you've-gotta-drag-it-out-of-us" chorus of praise from a listening audience more interested in the vastly inferior sophomore album by Nas, which also dropped that same summer. (If you go back and re-read The Source's original 1996 write-up, you'll be struck by the inexplicable contrast between that publication's coveted four-mic rating—with which it rightfully rewarded Reasonable Doubt—and its review, which reads, at best, like that of a middling three-mic novelty project. In fact, so disgusted was scribe Reginald C. Dennis—by his former Source colleagues' indifference to what he knew was a landmark album by a once-in-a-lifetime artist—that he bounced from the erstwhile "Hip-Hop Bible" to help co-found XXL, whose first cover would feature—you guessed it—Jay-Z.)

But a whole lot can happen in two short years. And, ever the hustler, Jay-Z had by then made several shrewd but crucial market corrections, with regard to how he spun his densely worded multi-tiered yarns—trimming from them some of their pathos-suffused interiority; affecting an even more guarded poker-faced cool; and splitting the proverbial difference between a psalm which contains multitudes and a front-loaded flow whose easy slipperiness now unearthed a disaffected fealty to (and celebration of) the world's finest things, while at the same time masking the genuine emotions, fears, aspirations, morals and mores of its archly cool architect.

And though this new approach often worked (as it did to great effect on the iconic Annie-soundtrack-sampling breakout single from his third, quadruple-platinum, career-arch-altering album), far too often it now resulted in demonic, dead-inside paeans to materialism such as "Money, Cash, Hoes," whose mixture of harsh atonal synth chords with grim, misogynistic lyrics made one feel the need for several long, hot baths (and, in turn, helped spawn a whole counter-movement committed to sticking strictly to the fundamentals of beats and rhymes). And it wasn't merely that Hov was rhyming about imbibing the most expensive champagne and driving the most exotic foreign cars. On the contrary, rap has always, to some degree, engaged materialism, as it represents for most folks an aspiration/reality in their everyday lives. No, the problem was that this was now (mostly) floss with very little substance accompanying it—from a rapper we knew knew better. This was now no longer a man who had to learn to live with regrets, but one who was in too deep and couldn't be bothered to care.

Which, is why, finally, 4:44, to Joe Budden's point, feels like more than a man's heartfelt confessions to his loyal, long-suffering wife. The album feels, additionally, like yet another market correction. But this time it's perhaps an atonement for potentially misleading an entire generation back when he wasn't rhyming like he had (or was) Common Sense. It's a gesture toward penitence for the human emotions he encouraged young inner-city boys—whether directly or indirectly—to annihilate, to render lifeless in dispassionate pursuit of material wealth and worldly possessions. And now he wants you to know he is sorry. And that the Jay-Z of old must be killed so that you (as well as he) can live. Murder is a tough thing to digest—it's a slow process—and JAY-Z, at 47, has got nothing but time.

[allofhertwist]

A Classic Sham?

Jidenna The Chief Epic/Wondaland

Some have said that the schizophrenic genre-hopping United Colors of Benetton approach of this (impressive) new Jidenna album feels more ingenuous than that of the last few Drake releases, whose similarly multiculti leanings have been said to at best signal a Cliffs Notes-style reading of recent developments in world music (those occurring both in Jamaican dancehall and Nigerian afrobeat, to be specific), or at worst reflect a kind of indifferent opportunism informing a most shameless attempt at exploitation. It's exactly the opposite. Drake's oeuvre can be defined as an erotics of surfaces—his superficiality is baked, as it were, into the equation; his petty is ultimately his purity—wherein an Internet-savvy, sonically region-less seemingly focus-group-approved Canadian former child actor's genre-piggybacking and bald navel-gazing might just represent some of the more ingenuous gestures from a public figure in our post-truth era. (In the wake of many hip-hop fans' non-reaction to 50 Cent's Machiavellian 2009 outing of Rick Ross as a former correctional officer, being honest in rap—a genre rife with a checkered history of straight-faced posturing—about its dishonest, fantastical, more theatric elements seems, radically, like one of the "realest" things one can do.) Jidenna, on the other hand, strikes one—if only because of his conk hairstyle; his sartorial flair; and his association with actress and future-soul journeywoman Janelle Monáe—as an artist who should have something a bit more authentic (in the conventional sense) to convey. And far too often on The Chief you get a cross-section of shrewdly eclectic songs that are aurally stunning, yet lack a certain je ne sais quoi as expressed by some of the artists who appear to have inspired them. ("Trampoline," for instance, is Drake-lite with trite cliches and bad puns—"The lady ain't a tramp/Just 'cause she bounce it up and down like a/trampoline"—sans the existential dread and solipsistic interiority, i.e. the very qualities that make Drake—love or hate him—a compelling artist.)

Don't get me wrong: there are some legit genuine moments amid these aesthetically pleasing, if slightly contrived songs. But for every "Chief Don't Run" (whose worldly, pleasantly droning Fela-esque stomp serves as an apt backdrop for the Nigerian rapper's dizzying rundown of his "you-can't-make-this-up" personal history, which includes ivy league education and being robbed at gunpoint by village thieves) there are, alas, too many moments where I legit found myself distractedly thinking, "You know, I would really rather listen to Bob Marley—whose birthday was this month—directly followed by the Migos instead of a ham-fisted attempt—"Helicopters"—at absorbing, in one setting, both of those stellar acts." Also: "Wyclef Jean: The Carnival—in stores now (and since 1997!)!" In a 2010 interview with Paris Review, celebrated novelist Jonathan Franzen spoke of the artistic necessity of getting at one's "hot material" (e.g., the messy but essential stuff of personal histories that can inspire great art). To be sure, Jidenna unquestionably has ample "hot material" from which to draw inspiration. He also possesses first-rate pop instincts. But until he finds a way to channel that material into a more honest presentation of himself as an artist, I am afraid Jidenna's strictly going to be capable of crafting an album that I can only fake-love.