Culturebox: It's Good To Be Kings

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culturebox It's Good To Be Kings Who is more grossly materialistic, Kanye or Jay-Z? By Seth Colter Walls Posted Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011, at 4:36 PM ET The first thing even minimally class-conscious listeners will notice about Watch the Throne--the highly anticipated collaboration between Kanye West and Jay-Z--is how obsessed it is with status in general and brands in particular. Benzes, Louboutins, Basquiats, and sundry other signifiers of wealth clog up almost every verse on the record, no matter which star is on the mic. The boasting isn't limited to the lyric sheet, either. The album's cover is graced with the classiest possible form of glitz: a design from Riccardo Tisci, he of the house of Givenchy. The whole thing seems like a rich-person sandwich straight out of an old Soviet propaganda movie--the filling made from a rare animal's bone marrow, nestled between truffles coated with a sugar glaze, all of it stuffed between slices of bread stolen from the proletariat. Gross, right? The gaudiness of Watch the Throne would have raised eyebrows during any week in recessional 2011, though it seemed especially discordant the week after S&P's downgrading of America's credit-worthiness. Hua Hsu, in an essay for Grantland, noted the album's reliance on "income-gap raps," while no less an authority than Chuck D crafted a response video to the Otis Redding-sampling "Otis," called "Notice." "Millions, billions, trillions/ whips wheelin'/ is a million miles from what people's feelin," Chuck admonishes (after opening with a de rigueur "no disrespect" to our "rap heroes"). Can Watch the Throne really be this blind to what's going on in the world outside the Mercer? To continue reading, click here. Seth Colter Walls is a freelance reporter and critic whose writing has appeared in Newsweek, the Village Voice, the Washington Post and the Awl. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Real Reason Britons Are Rioting? They Might Just Want Free Stuff and a Good Time. The Woman Who Is Making New York City Safe for Motorists, Cyclists, and Pedestrians Does a Falling Stock Price Affect a Company's Day-to-Day Operations?	Advertisement
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