KANYE AND JAY-Z OCCUPY THE THRONE
2011. We’re still at war with terrorism, racism and yes, we’re still at war with ourselves. If Jesus was still walking with ‘em on the College Dropout it definitely seems like he’s walked away from the world that birthed Watch The Throne. There’s a reason the question’s mutated into “what’s a god to a non-believer?” The life that “starts where the church ends” faces grave danger in the Wild. That said, with a top-lit cross that would make Stryper proud, the blazing crusade that was Jesus Walks proved that the Church of Janye will be the one to “convert atheists into believers.” Like a pair of benevolent fascists, they funneled the heavy taxation that was the Livenation ticket price into a glorious gift to a dying world. Knell’s bells for the new gilded age, it was the kind of blockbuster production meant send everyone off jaw dropped in infinite jest.
Also in 2011, it’s still hard to shine on $6.55. Why do you think Kanye wore flannel, grills and a gold chain to Occupy Wall Street? Because “the system’s broke, the schools closed but mu%^& we rollin’” and not only are we rolling, but we’re rolling on top of jumbotron shark tanks Sigfried and Roy’s animals could only dream about. From a giant American flag that would give Philip Sousa’s groin rigor mortis to elevated stages in the middle of the floor suggesting there’s more life in the galaxy than the Daft Punk pyramid and ELO’s spaceship, even the nosebleed section had tissues to blow their issues out on. “Champagne for the pain,” so to speak.
It’s important to remember that Watch The Throne’s relevance lays in how it adds a third factor to Du Boisian double-consciousness, not only are Jay and Kanye Black and American, but as per the Occupy movement’s rhetoric they’re in the “top 1%.” Their being scapegoated for the current economic crisis instead of being greeted as Gatsby-style inside illuminators only embellishes that precariousness. It’s front lines reporting from two men whose racial category is rarely that kind of privy to its treasures. As rap’s elder statesman points out, one can “only spot a few blacks the higher up we go” still necessitating “a million more.” If they did anything last night, it was definitely invite everyone to “kick in the door.” In a montage that redeemed Louis Armstrong’s “What a Beautiful World” from the sappy rom-com void it’s been relegated to, they ran with gleeful irony through the series of blemishes that make up American History. K-9 attack dogs, protesters beaten by riot squads, “Katrina Was Here” on an abandoned, flooded-out tenement, the KKK induction of a toddler klansman, and, of course, the pinnacle of American technological advancement, THE ATOMIC BOMB. It was Brechtian, to say the least.
The veneer of exalted remove, of flaunted wealth was undercut by socio-political engagement with the audience that stressed unifying struggles. A decision to perform the intergenerational advice column that is New Day while in a sitting position worked like street theater, evoking morally cautious stoop stories told by old men to neighborhood kids still on the come up for a let down. Made in America’s resurrection of the Kings and the Shabbazzes as deities works as a strategic corrective to post-civil rights fallout, recalling the place of the church, right or wrong, from abolition through the march on Washington.*
It wasn’t solemn piety though, like the chains so heavy they nod to slavery with back pain, everything is layered. Kanye’s fashion choices were both daring and awesomely flagrant, grinding the axe that must’ve been pulled out the shed following the cool response to his Paris fashion show. One of them, a Givenchy kilt with a tribal jacket made his place next to Jay seem like Death and the King’s Horseman, ‘Ye the recklessly indulgent Elesin and Jay the “seen what the other side has to offer” fatherly son that knows what must be done.
Upping the ante on the ridiculously self-aware Blades of Glory sample, they ran through Ni&&as in Paris three times. The giddy, schoolyard amusement they laughed with after the fish filet punchline was infectious, callbacks on callbacks on callbacks. Kanye played the punk cop in 99 Problems’ interrogation sequence, mining it for the absurdist comedy routine that our justice system is. The set’s Prince-indebted Purple Rain-isms (all of Runaway on top a glowing red box from the saddest cyberpunk Christmas) was rounded out by Born in the USA style Springsteen populism (the American flag draped “we gettin money up from under you” on OTIS).
The flag, eagles and general American imagery that adorned their set offered a tongue-in-cheek patriotism, one that assumes the pride anyone whose ancestors built this country should have in it, except with acknowledgement that the fruits of their labor are maldistributed at their brethren’s expense. Their primary methodology is a Trojan Horse that Leo Strauss would hold begrudging respect for. Anthemic hooks offering bootstrap aspirational narratives are severely undermined by extended riffs on reality’s glass ceiling, endlessly offering eye-opening shards to ladder-climbing hopefuls (think Empire State of Mind). Still, taking it from murder to excellence undermines the nihilistic fatalism that kind of jarring juxtaposition would normally engender.Yes, the show asked you spend all your money on it cause the pain ain’t cheap, but it’s not about “jumping out the window” anymore, if anything, this show showed hope for a new new workout plan. Anyone confused about Kanye’s presence at Occupy Wall Street obviously missed the album’s point.
anything not said here was probably said here or even here:
*Betty And Coretta’s absence on the screens was somewhat unfortunate given Jay’s white icon Moma swipe, as was the choice to do Gold Digger instead of All Falls Down, but…win some lose some!
