{"id":7754,"date":"2013-09-27T17:02:17","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T17:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=7754"},"modified":"2013-09-27T17:02:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T17:02:17","slug":"fear-of-music-jay-z-jay-g-and-the-new-generation-perdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/09\/27\/fear-of-music-jay-z-jay-g-and-the-new-generation-perdue\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear of Music – Jay Z, Jay G, and the New G\u00e9n\u00e9ration Perdue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JAY-Z-100-bill\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Devin King<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was probably no musician better suited to executive produce the soundtrack to the new Baz Luhrman version of The Great Gatsby<\/em> than Jay-Z. Jay Z referred to Gatsby as a \u201cclassic American story of one\u2019s introduction to extravagance, decadence and illusion.\u201d In a departure from hip-hop\u2019s origins, the brand of hip-hop popularized by Jay Z, not unlike the Jazz Age depicted by Fitzgerald, is obsessed with status and wealth. When he speaks of the extravagance and decadence it shows that his understanding of Jay-G(atsby) is pretty surface level, as he found Gatsby to be an aspirational figure. Like so many university students, Shawn Carter seems to have read the first part of Gatsby<\/em> and improvised his understanding of the rest of the book. Don\u2019t worry Jay, I won\u2019t spoil it for you.<\/p>\n

In a year when a contemporary like Kanye West released his misogynistic Death Grips fantasy that is Yeezus<\/em><\/a>, Jay Z released the similarly Christian name-dropping Magna Carta, Holy Grail<\/em>. While critics tied themselves in knots trying to justify liking Yeezus despite its lyrical content, the consensus around MCHG<\/em> was a collective shrug. However, whatever Jay Z lacked in musical ingenuity this time around, he made up for in business sense. The language of capital is something that he clearly pays close attention to, and more evident why he views The Great Gatsby<\/em> as an aspirational text. While Yeezy spent his time making an artistic statement, Jay Z decided he wanted to make money.<\/p>\n

Jay Z partnered with Samsung to release free copies of MCHG on an exclusive app, receiving an upfront payment of five million dollars, guaranteeing a platinum record even before the record itself was released. The five million was a part of a larger twenty million deal with Jay Z\u2019s entertainment company Roc Nation. This might seem like a lot, but it\u2019s worth noting that Samsung\u2019s marketing department spends four billion per year, which is equal to one quarter of the profits made by the music industry last year.These sorts of upfront deals could signify a shift in how revenue is generated, and how traditional models of generating capital are becoming less profitable. In this sense, the music of MCHG<\/em> seems as if it\u2019s a bit of an afterthought. It\u2019s as if Jay Z knew he could make money in this, or some other form of a lucrative business model. The music could be churned out without effort as a means to facilitate the increased exchange of capital.<\/p>\n

Theoretically, the app was meant to be an early-release album stream app exclusively for Samsung owners. People excited for the new album were a bit surprised at what they found. The app requested a number of interesting permissions including full network access, precise (GPS) location, and determination of your phone number and device IDs. In my day job I work with teachers, technology and social media, and one thing I tell teachers is that it\u2019s important to read and understand terms of service and privacy policy. If they don\u2019t, it\u2019s entirely possible that they and their students\u2019 data and privacy could be at risk. So it might be entirely necessary that an app would ask for your location (Google Maps won\u2019t work as well without it, for example) but there certainly is a question of why Jay Z or Samsung would need your exact location if all you\u2019re doing is streaming an album. It\u2019s likely it\u2019s meant for nothing more sinister than targeted advertising, but the precedent exists that users are more willing than ever to give up their private information, knowingly or not.<\/p>\n

That the PRISM scandal happened shortly before this is perhaps indicative of new American norms. Just as Gatsby was a depiction of the excess of the Jazz Age, MCHG<\/em>, as a sort of meta-marketing exercise, shows a new age in America that combines desire of wealth with the willingness to give away aspects of our identity. What Jay Z is engaging in is a new sort of capital \u2013 data capital. Combining the ever blurring line of privacy and access is another notion of what is valuable. The vast proliferation of the MCHG<\/em> app \u2013 even illegally \u2013 seemed expected, as if the goal wasn\u2019t totally to sell an album in the first place. The collection of data, used to target consumers, has not only proven profitable in the short term but may prove profitable in the long term as well as the data capital collected could be used to communicate directly to the consumer. This trend can only encourage artists and labels to offer more and more for data, the emerging capital of power.<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald and his contemporaries wrote of a people known as \u201cthe lost generation.\u201d It meant something different than we might consider it now \u2013 a generation giving away its identity, in exchange for material goods (or immaterial, in the case of an app, I guess.) What does it mean when you trade your thoughts, secrets, and privacy for the latest single? It\u2019s not unreasonable to think that corporations and labels will ask more of us, and not just money, to access music. This is the problem. The further that artists like Jay Z fall down the hole that was warned about in The Great Gatsby,<\/em> that was evidenced by the NSA wiretapping, the further disconnected we will become from music as a form of expression. Instead, it and our privacy will just be another currency. Tomorrow we will run faster, reach our arms farther, but we will know not what for.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Devin King There was probably no musician better suited to executive produce the soundtrack to the new Baz Luhrman version of The Great Gatsby than Jay-Z. Jay Z referred to Gatsby as a \u201cclassic American story of one\u2019s introduction to extravagance, decadence and illusion.\u201d In a departure from hip-hop\u2019s origins, the brand of hip-hop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[338,470],"class_list":["post-7754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","tag-fear-of-music","tag-jay-z"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}