Think - Music

Just finished watching this. Jay-Z's most recent crack at making a bigger dollar has led to a primitively disappointing song that further perpetuates the noted disposable nature of autotune derived music. *deep breath* Explaination: Let's start with the song itself.

"Run This Town" first registers as tribal inspired beat with Rihanna backing up with an earful of wailing around the chorus. Jay-Z manages to deliver two forgettable verses that strike me in a positive way. Only when I hear Maison Martin Margiela the song manages to impress me in one way: I expect my friends to ask me about Maison Martin Margiela and I would respond by clearly explaining a digestible part of the name. This was, in effect, initially a good song because it would manage to help the wider audience understand something I understood, hence making my interest a little more relate able and then I could actually have something to talk to someone with for once!

As you might be expecting, the actual lyrics are the trouble in this situation. Not regarding Martin Margiela, Jay-Z sustains a linear path into the minds of the masses in search of monitary based respect. Mo'Money. This is where Jay-Z contradicts himself. In the tell tale song "D.O.A" or "Death of Autotunes," Jay-Z takes, what seems to be, an externally targeted point of claiming the death to the rise of music using the machine based tool.

We do know that Autotunes music (for lack of a more specific term, I'll just blanket this across that T-Pain/Lil'Wayne/Kanye West/disco type... w/e you get it) is the money making, no-talent-required route to a mechanically synthesized song of perishable nature, mainly sourcing inspiration from sex to annoying Lil'Wayne babble. (Sorry, getting a little side tracked)

But... in "D.O.A.," Jay-Z takes an aim to declare this now-popularized type of music that spreads inspiration thin with overwrought connection to other music. Autotunes, not getting us anywhere culturally, deserved an expiration (in my opinion) because I didn't see it leading anywhere good. And who better than someone with as much influence. So, just when I was looking forward to The Blueprint 3, the disappointing "Run This Town" shown in the light of day and the more I listened I became more angered.

This all leads me to the fact that song is in no way inclusive of the proposition from "D.O.A.." A proposition I see as one that would entail an inspiring quality of music. Such is obviously absent from "Run This Town." However, it is deeply disappointing to see this music reach large volumes of people because of the way it sustains the shallow values of money and sex that our own culture seem to consume to the place of identity. Something I cannot find myself happy with. Especially when Jay-Z identifies himself in Maison Martin Margiela; which might imply he connects with or might manifest a vision way outside of the popular mainstream. The said possibility I would have no problem with.

But instead the song supports a problem in the Black community that continues to hinder the overall motion towards scruples that lead from the darkness emphatic attention to material things instead of objects of brighter possibilities. The new song is a fresher variation of Black music that puts a premium on the money. Money at any cost... money from all crevices of illegal activity.

More on what is better later...