I’m no fan of JAY-Z in the least bit, but I peeped NAH’RIGHT the other night and he posted some JAY-Z lyrics to one of his upcoming songs/freestyles from the new album and I admit that I enjoyed the theme. What more can I say? There is a reason why dude is so popular and that’s because he can transfer to his audience the fact that he loves what he does professionally. Most of the time.
A couple of weekends ago there was a ton of noise made from the not so secret leak of his new album’s first single. The single ‘Show Me What You Got’ has been made into several videos up to this point ad is pretty much fading from our memory as we await the leaks of more singles and videos. I wonder why the administration over at Universal was so disturbed by the public preview of JAY-Z’s new works. Leaks in the record business amount to nothing more than movie previews or press releases with music in the background. JAY-Z is just about the only sure thing left in the soundscape for recording artists and these previews were great P.R. events that wetted the public’s appetite. What was the problem here?
I think the problem that has arisen is that you folks on the internets are gaining too much knowledge (read: power) as consumers. It’s not just you geeks with your turbocharged PC’s downloading the new shiite, it’s all the other kids that we share our information with via XXL online, MySpace, FaceBook, AIM and BlackPlanet (yeah, I still use BlackPlanet – F.U.). No record label can slip any bullhit past us and this is what has them scared. They can’t try to sell us some shit that has sat in the can for 3 months any longer because we demand that next, next new. To his credit, JAY-Z understands how fickle we are as consumers and he constructs his image around being that dude with the access to the exclusive shiite. That means name dropping all kinds of obscure designers and products.
Maybe that’s why I love his latest move as Budweiser pitchman so much. I can afford a six pack of Bud Select on my blogger’s salary ($0 per year before taxes). I’ll never forget the day i was shopping on Fulton Street across from Albee Square Mall several years ago. From one of the sidewalk speakers the song Jigga, My Nigga’ blared as pedestrians walked the block. This sister was walking with her son holding her hand and dude couldn’t have been older than five or six years old and he was singing the chorus to that song which almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. Right then I realized that we were on the express bus to Hell in a handbasket.
Albeit, a Hermes handbasket.
ROC-A-FELLA y’all.
