Things Hampton Taught Me: Close Reading | Jay-Z & Kanye West, “Murder to Excellence”

So, three days ago, long-time crush friend and once-client, DJ JALEN posted “Kanye West’s & Jay-Z’s Black Excellence Gap.”  Before I even start this response … I’ll say, it’s an incredibly well-written piece.  I’m pretty sure Jalen and I first connected over words … so trust me … I get it … she knows how to read and write.

I’m not sure if it’s my stan-like nature for Jay and Kanye, or the love of the song … but something has intensified my unwillingness to just accept her opinion as is … well not all of it, just a few things.

LET’S SUM IT UP

“Murder to Excellence” may sound like a tribute to black struggle, power, and excellence, but it is a departure from the true meaning of the rhetorical symbols it’s couched in. By resting on the lavishness of their lifestyles to define their excellence, Kanye West and Jay-Z make it clear that it will depend on “the people,” the over 94% of us who can’t gloat over multimillion dollar assets, to “redefine black power” and name the future of black excellence.

What started out as valiant social commentary has declined into a drab, somewhat sulky exaltation of “the new black elite.”

Jalen basically feels that the end of the song (what we’ll hereby refer to as “excellence”) is counter to the concepts and ideas presented in “murder” (the first part of the song referencing Danroy Henry, Fred Hampton, and what Jalen refers to as “the energy of protest, embodied by their straightforward lyrics, the staccato drumbeat and the a cappella vocals that dance over it”).

LET’S BREAK IT DOWN

Jalen writes,

While this kind of braggadocio may seem particularly inappropriate during an epoch of economic hurt, I can accept it for what it is as far as pop music goes — well-produced, self-aggrandizing rap about things most people can only enjoy vicariously. It’s when the proponents of “luxury rap” try to posit their having and spending large amounts of money on superfluous things as something more, however, that I tap the brakes on the imaginary Maybach. What is this I hear about black excellence?

So there are 2 questions that arise out of this passage for me:

1. Why can’t “having and spending large amounts of money on superfluous things” be something “more?”

2. What definitions of black excellence are we using?

Let’s actually begin with the 2nd question 1st.

I can already imagine Jalen suggesting that we are using the the ideas of excellence first presented in the song (and elsewhere in the album):

The first half of the track is peppered with mentions of Black Power Movement orator and icon, Fred Hampton (“I arrived on the day Fred Hampton died / Uh, real n*ggas just multiply”), and 20-year-old Pace University student, Danroy Henry Jr., who, like Hampton, was shot and killed by police. Throughout this part of the track, Jay-Z and Kanye successfully conjure up the energy of protest, embodied by their straightforward lyrics, the staccato drumbeat and the a cappella vocals that dance over it. “Power to the people. When you see me, see you,” Jay-Z proposes.  … [We are using] the tradition of black struggle that they reference on this track as well as elsewhere on the album: Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz, Corretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr.

Bet.  One problem (maybe more). The difference between a speech being made by Barack Obama (used only as an example of words intended for political or social use) and this song written by Jay and Kanye is that this is their art.  Hence, they are allowed a particular type of artistic freedom of expression.  We’ve been taking to task the ideas of “art for art sake” and ‘political art” long before the BP Movement or BAM, so it’s hard for me not to read this as an artistic piece entered into a long line of art being examined for its political qualities.  Doing that forces me to wonder whether it’s ok to simply critique this as Jay-Z and Kanye’s blanket statement of what “Black Excellence” is, or rather an entry into a conversation- an additional entry into already-formed queries of “what it means to be black” or “what is black struggle” or “what do we do to show we have moved past the struggle?”

I will add that HERE is where it becomes clear that Jalen is a cultural critic and me, well, we know I live for the literary.

Jay-Z begins “Murder to Excellence” saying,

This is to the memory of Danroy Henry
Too much enemy fire to catch a friendly
Strays from the same shade, Ni**a we on the same team
Giving you respect, I expect the same thing
All black everything, Ni**a you know my fresh code …

Jay-Z is paying homage.  “This is to the memory of Danroy Henry,” he says.  Then, quickly, he moves to announce himself as a soldier in a (albeit not the same) struggle of his own.  “Ni**a we on the same team / Giving you respect, I expect the same thing …” He goes on to establish that his audience is already aware of his allegiance to the struggle.  “All black everything, Ni**a you know my fresh code …”  But then, Jay makes a move that some poets engaged in collective struggle have never been brave enough to make.  He separates and establishes himself as an individual in the struggle with individual issues.

I’m out here fightin’ for you, Don’t increase my stress load
Ni**as watchin’ the throne, Very happy to be
Power to the people, When you see me, see you

Jay makes clear that he’s fighting for the people.  In fact, he’s happy to be doing it.  Yet, as an individual, he asks the audience to resist adding (perhaps through quick judgement or a lack of respect) stress to the struggle he is already facing.  Jay then offers an almost aspirational addition, “When you see me, see you.”

And this brings us back to our question of “Why can’t “having and spending large amounts of money on superfluous things” be something “more?”

“When you see me, see you,” Jay says.  Then immediately after, Kanye follows with:

And I’m from the murder capital, Where they murder for capital
Heard about at least 3 killings this afternoon
Lookin’ at the news like damn I was just with him after school,
No shop class but half the school got a tool,
And I could die any day type attitude
Plus his little brother got shot reppin’ his avenue
It’s time for us to stop and re-define black power
41 souls murdered in 50 hours

The paper read murder, Black on black murder,
The paper read murder, Black on black murder again
Murder again…

Is it genocide?
Cause I can still hear his momma cry, Know the family traumatized
Shots left holes in his face, Bout piranha-size
The old pastor closed the cold casket
And said the church ain’t got enough room for all the tombs
It’s a war going on outside we ain’t safe from
I feel the pain in my city wherever I go
314 soldiers died in Iraq
509 died in Chicago

“When you see me, see you …”

If Kanye does anything with this verse, he shows what he knows to be real about Chicago.  What’s real is that what the Chicago natives see, he sees.  He’s been there with them.

Still, Kanye’s depiction could easily have been representative of NY, DC, Georgia (RIP Troy Davis) or my own home, Philadelphia.  His words show that yes, we conceptualize ideas of war based on what we are given from the media- we know Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Vietnam.  Some of us even know Suweto, Liberia and almost every part of Africa. But Kanye shows us that we know struggle better than most.  We know Camden.

Kanye’s words also transform the way we think about a Black Power movement or struggle.  These are black on black crimes being depicted in his verse, not black on white, not the opposite.  His verse forces us to question where struggle lies.  Yes, we can say that all of these actions are couched in crazy institutionalized racism and economic instability and lack of education … but remember, Jay-Z has already said: “”When you see me, see you..”  We already know that both Jay and Kanye have risen from everything depicted in Kanye’s verse.  So, in the individual, where does the struggle lie?  Because, if it’s within … well, that’s one hell of a collective movement.

The song continues with Jay adding:

I arrived on the day Fred Hampton died
Real niggas just multiply
And they say by 21 I’m supposed to die
So I’m out here celebratin’ my post demise
If you put crabs in a barrel to insure your survival
You gon’ end up pulling down niggas that look just like you
What up blood? What up cuz?
It’s all black, I love us

In this verse, Jay expands Kanye’s previously posited queries of black on black crime and revisits his original ideas of mutual respect.  He imagines himself as an extension of Fred Hampton while celebrating the fact that he has made it further than most (this is more a commentary on life expectancy than material wealth).  Yet, Jay is clearly aware that there are some who question or, for lack of better term, “hate” on not just his, but the black man’s rise to success.  “If you put crabs in a barrel to insure your survival / You gon’ end up pulling down niggas that look just like you.”  What’s he saying here?  Oh you know, birds of a feather … crabs of a claw … you get it.  But still, Jay continues with some hope of making amends or encouraging another (perhaps one who hasn’t made it or resents him) saying: “What up blood? … It’s all black, I love us”

What Jay and Kanye have been doing here is preparing the listener for the transition from “murder,” a section fueled with self-hatred, black on black crime, struggle, a lack of trust, sadness, etc into “black excellence,” the second section of the song.

(Jay-Z)
It’s a celebration of black excellence
Black tie, black Maybachs
Black excellence, opulence, decadence
Tuxes next to the president, I’m present
I dress in Dries and other boutique stores in Paris
In sheepskin coats, I silence the lamb
Do you know who I am Clarice?
No cheap cologne whenever I “shh-shh”
Success never smelled so sweet, I stink of success
The new black elite They say my black card bear the mark of the beast
I repeat, My religion is the beat
My verse is like church, My Jesus piece Now please, domino, domino
Only spot a few blacks the higher I go
What’s up to Will, Shoutout to O
That ain’t enough, We gon need a million more
Kick in the door, Biggie flow
I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go

In the midst of what Jalen calls a “drab, somewhat sulky exaltation,” I find something a little different.  I find both inspiration and aspiration.  I find hope.  I find a celebration of self.  And this matters.  For poets are not the only ones who understand that most will not celebrate us until we’re dead.

For Jay and Kanye, “having and spending large amounts of money on superfluous things” IS something “more?”

It’s more than they could do in childhood.  It’s more than people during the black power movement could do.  It’s more than is expected of them.  It’s more than what some folks will ever dream of doing.

It allows them access to points of power.

It positions them to do more for those beneath them.  Even if they were to do nothing but spend large amounts of money on superfluous things, those actions have placed the same option in the heads of millions of other people who might not have envisioned it before.  Let’s only hope they’re as creative and efficient at using their resources to obtain the same opportunity.

IN ADDITION

Earlier, Kanye stated, “It’s time for us to stop and re-define black power.”  In the previously referenced verse, Jay makes plain that this is what he intends to do.  Perhaps he is not on the street with a picket sign.  No, he is not laying down his body on the floor to be thrown into jail.  Still,  every time he wears his tux “next to the president” (who, by the way, in case you all didn’t know, is also black), every time he’s “present… [dressed in] Dries and other boutique stores in Paris / In sheepskin coats” as a black man who was raised in and somehow found his way out of, struggle, he has the right to celebrate.  He feels that he can now ask, “Do you know who I am Clarice?”  The crazy thing is … we do. And even more cause to celebrate, we also understand his reference to power and Silence of the Lambs allusion.

Saying this, it becomes clear to me that Jalen doesn’t give Jay nor Kanye enough credit for their understanding of the Black Power movement or collective struggle. Jay makes plain, “Only spot a few blacks the higher I go / What’s up to Will, Shoutout to O / That ain’t enough, We gon need a million more.”  If this isn’t a 21st century call to arms … then I don’t know what is.

Perhaps this is:

Kick in the door, Biggie flow

LET’S BE CLEAR

Jalen is correct.

One of the principal themes of the black power tradition that Kanye and Jay-Z continually evoke is that of collective struggle. The figures they name, while not identical in their ideologies, did believe in international solidarity amongst oppressed communities, and in empowerment from the bottom-up. “Power to the people” was about the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the proletariat coming together to access their power. “The people” are common, and they are excellent, as individual activists, educators, intellectuals, and workers, and as an organized whole.

She is also correct in saying,

Kanye West and Jay-Z make it clear that it will depend on “the people,” the over 94% of us who can’t gloat over multimillion dollar assets, to “redefine black power” and name the future of black excellence.

Perhaps she just forgets that Jay and Kanye are as much the people as she is.  That Booker T Washington was “the people” until he singled-out as a leader.  That Langston Hughes was “the people” until he stumbled upon a well-endowed benefactor needed to fund his art.  That Huey P. Newton faced bigger issues as an individual than whether he should focus on accumulating wealth. That Amiri Baraka created the idea of “the people” in art and poetry and he now has several homes, a councilman son, and has sold his works to libraries such as Morehouse and Columbia, not just to support his children, but perhaps also, to spend money on things sometimes superfluous (and perhaps not superfluous to him at all).  To each his own.

I could go into questions we’ve asked over and over circling ideas of what the people are struggling for … or how they know when the struggle is over … or how we expect this struggle to look in a capitalist society but …

I think I’m actually all “peopled” out …

I’ll let Baraka finish up here.

you stay cool.  i’ll stay khoLi. <3

Tags: entertainment, jay-z, kanye west, life and writing, murder to excellence, the personal is political, there is no such thing as small change, watch the throne