What's next? I don't know, do you? Who am I? I am someone who makes films. What do I do? I look through viewfinders. And how do I live? I live by the skin of my teeth.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

HipHop Mogul Boycots Champagne

In a recent issue of ROLLING STONE there was a little blurb about the return to the microphone by rapper-cum-business man Jay-Z. We all knew he wasn't going to retire... no one who gained their fame through the media spotlight willing gives it up -- flops and fickle fans force you to leave. I'm assuming that

However, what was interesting in the blurb was that Jay-Z's 40/40 Clubs -- all across the land -- were boycotting French champang staple Cristal. Apparently, Cristal's head honcho Fedreic Rouzard made some remarks in an issue of The Economist, in which he felt uncomfortable about his beverage being lauded by hip-hop culture. J-Hova thought these comments were racist, and instituted the ban.

That's some dumbass shit, as you'd be hard pressed to find any luxury goods manufacturer embracing the fact that a mysoginstic, violent, counter bouregois subculture headed up by mainly ignorant Negroes (still a hated group) -- witness what happend with Oprah and Hermes last summer. I bet Lius Vuitton's people have thought the same thing, and no doubt then-Daimler Benz was pissed the fuck off when rap world personalities like Flavor Flav were sporting the Benz hood ornament as necklace in the '80s.

Now, people like Puffy Combs, Russell Simmons and Jay-Z and others have made an extraordinary amount of money by bringing hip-hop and its cultural artifacts to the masses, that is the young masses. Whereas what hip-hop represents, a snatching of white wealth & power into the hands of Black people -- ultimately, it's going to rankle the noses of high end people, e.g. Rouzard et al.

Why? Because white people in that upper 1% of society don't GIVE A FUCK about Black people, especially American Blacks -- the former chattel property -- and in fact, look upon them with great apprehension... and rightly so, because Black people instill a sense of social upheaval, that things associated with them lose their luster. Whether that is true or not is another post, another debate and another piece of societal understanding in its own right.

So in the end Jay-Z is being foolish. If he's going to take that stand, then he's trying to fight someting that he's never gonna change. What he needs to do is use his marketing prowess to help combat the Thornstein Veblenesque spending habits of niggas in America! And do something about global warming, assist in the weaning of America off of oil ('cause it ain't the gasoline you need to be worrying about, it's all the plastic that's in your daily life -- same oil makes both, which one can we do without easier?), and help expose the Econmonic Hit Men that the government leaders employ in their private business opportunities.

That's what J-Hova needs to be mad about.

I wonder why he's not?

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