Hua Hsu provides excellent historical and community perspective on Janye. At times he zeroes in on the profit motives and the corporate slanguage used to accommodate the primary function, pushing units and/or “selling spectacle”. Link
Ours is an era of collaborative possibility, when anything from Dockers to a cellular phone pouch can seem desirable with the right synergistic pairing. This is how the business of buying and selling things continues to renew itself, in the endless permutation of new and old. There is something fresh and democratic about it, as the market divides itself up into thousands of little inlets, all the capsule collections and collaborations with Target and down-market bridge lines allowing all segments of the populace to luxuriate every now and then. As a result we’ve grown comfortable with unlikely juxtapositions and mutually beneficial alliances, all in the name of something greater, from “Marvel Comics X Williams-Sonoma” to Pusha of Clipse shouting out the “hipsters” and the “felons.”
Instead of competition, we now live in a culture that produces mutually beneficial agreements. Instead of rivals there are dream teams, talents taken around the globe in the name of common goals, brand visions, the quid pro quo backslap culture of “liking” and retweeting. Instead of a guy emerging from a bench-clearing brawl with his arm dislocated, we have the Miami Heat and their “Big Three.”
I’m not all in on the record but I’m not all out either. Recognize their strengths, yeah, certainly. Recognize their fear of failure in their inability to express a sense of vulnerability, especially with respect to paper, oh hell yeah. Kanye opens up sometimes, but not enough to be relatable. He remains Chi-town? Brooklyn ’til Jay die? Oh word, so whats good with the significant disconnect to current events? But you know where they do manage to connect? Aspirationally. And maybe that’s enough. Is it enough? And lets be practical here. It’s a safe assumption that both Jay-Z and Kanye are well aware of what the deal is in the streets. Following that thought then is the fact that it is a conscious decision not to address certain topics, not to ruffle certain feathers. Knowing their roots, that’s what’s most disappointing to me. Knowing that they can, that they probably want to, but that they choose not to. Business, not personal.
Oh yeah, that Neptunes beat is tough. Loop status.
