Jay Z and the Establishment Negro
By: James Strong
The plane of success will at some point nosedive into a storm of controversy—not because it wants to, but because it has to. Jay Z, the rap star who became a multimillionaire through his music and by becoming a music producer, owner of a sports agency and investor in various profitable businesses, found this fact recently to be more real than he expected.The rap mogul excited both fans and Wall Street when he launched Tidal, a music streaming website offering music from such famous musicians as Prince, Alicia Keyes, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Madonna and Nicki Minaj. He said he formed the company because other streaming services did not pay artists enough for streaming their music and he wanted to correct that.That reason sang a tune worthy of a million hand claps, until you faced the sticker shock. Z charges subscribers to Tidal between $9.99 and $19.99 per month to listen to music from 20 to 40 musicians. In contrast, Pandora, YouTube, Spotify and other much larger music streaming sites with hundreds of artists offer their services free.
As you can see, a substantial gap separates him from them. He offers less for more; they offer more for less.Critics from Wall Street to house cleaners, from millionaires to poodles blasted Jay Z for trying to make millionaire musicians richer by stealing from poorer fans and admirers. Even major musicians such as Mumford & Sons, Lily Allen and singer Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie criticized him for his richer than thou music streaming service. Gibbard predicted that Tidal “[will] fail miserably.”
Then, to compound the issue, after scolding the black community for not supporting black businesses, his wife, pop sensation Beyonce, uploaded a photo of Jay Z with Tidal’s all-white staff. He never told the world that he didn’t actually create a new company. Instead, he bought the Swedish/Norwegian firm Aspiro, and the white people came with it.But the damage had already been done, as the ceaseless ridicule he received on social media battered his ego with the force of a jackhammer. So much so that at his TIDAL X: Jay-Z B Sides concert at Terminal 5 in New York City on May 17, he criticized his critics in a rap song with such stupid lyrics as:
“I feel like YouTube is the/ biggest culprit/Them niggas pay you a tenth/of what you supposed to get/You know niggas die for equal/pay right?”
Jay Z needs to stop shuckin’ and jivin’. His plane descended into a storm and crashed. He is now a member of the establishment. But that’s not always bad.He should imitate the best qualities of those establishment blacks who love their people and carry a genuine concern for the future of the black community. He should follow the example of Bill Cosby—minus the rape, of course–and not exploit black America as if she were dandruff to be marketed as grains of gold.
Even during those years when he raped mostly white women, Cosby gave millions to black colleges, participated in civil rights marches and encouraged black kids to live a decent, honorable, hard-working life as eminently as an emerald.Thus, Jay Z should avoid those qualities the establishment negro, the opposite of the establishment black, is often praised for: Selfishness, deception, untrustworthiness, snitching, hypocrisy, greed and materialism.
Establishment negroes feign devotion to black America. They place so much emphasis on personal status and ambition, on maintaining a lifestyle which may be lavishand acceptable to whites, that they will deride and demean blacks to maintain that status.To save their reputations in the white community and to ensure they are not excluded from playing golf at the nearby country club or hitting tennis balls on a private tennis court, for them, the black community is almost a forgotten dream, as artificial to their way of life as corn syrup.In this sense, establishment negroes are cold as ice, irrelevant to the future of black America, unashamed of that which brings shame. In this sense, Jay Z has the superbopportunity to surpass Cosby in character and achievement, to align himself with the bestthe black establishment has to offer and to not languish as burnt toast overspread with mayonnaise.
Copyright © 2015 by James Strong. All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation of this column, or any part of this column, without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Send your comments to strongpoints123@gmail.com.
