Jay-Z and Jay-Gatz, "Niggas" and Nouveau Riche in Paris and West Egg

This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male,—the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. In order to avoid stultification he must also cultivate his tastes, for it now becomes incumbent on him to discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods. He becomes a connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages and trinkets, in seemly apparel and architecture, in weapons, games, dancers, and the narcotics.

- Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

What's Gucci, my nigga? What's Louis, my killa?
What's drugs, my dealer? What's that jacket, Margiela?

- Jay-Z, "Niggas in Paris" (2011)

Thorstein Veblen's concept of "conspicuous consumption" is as easy to apply to the quote nouveau riche unquote of hip hop as it is to fictional West Eggers like the theatrical eponymous MC of Fitzgerald's Great American Novel. Certainly Jay Gatsby has much in common with hip hop impresarios like Jay-Z himself--"The Great Gatsby" surely would have been a rap name if Fitzgerald had not taken it first; it even references the gatling gun popular both among the gangsters of the 1920s and the gangsta rappers of 1990s. More to the point, both Jay-Gatz and Jay-Z came from humble origins, both rose to prominence in part through nefarious means. As newly rich, then, they also share what Thorstein referred to as a "punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence." In short, they both know, and demonstrate their knowledge of, the best brands to buy in fashion, cars, and houses (see my reading of Jay-Z's reading of New York architecture). We might, then, view the extravagance of "Niggas in Paris," and Watch the Throne more generally, as hollow yet hopeful in much the same way that Fitzgerald seems to view Gatsby's manifold displays of wealth.

"Ball so hard, this shit weird
We ain’t even s’pose to be here,
Ball so hard, since we here
It’s only right that we be fair."

When Nick and Gatsby are passed on the Long Island Expressway by a limousine full of African Americans, the narrator thinks, "Anything can happen...even Gatsby could happen" (73). Fitzgerald thus aligns Gatsby's mysterious wealth with that of these newly and upwardly

mobile blacks--of course African Americans were making great strides during the Harlem Renaissance just as industrialists were achieving success during the "boom" of the Roaring Twenties. Again, Jay Gatsby and Jay-Z in particular share similar rags to riches American dream narratives. In telling his own success story, Jay-Z aligns himself with the era of the robber barons, naming his brand after the famous industrialist of the early twentieth century. In a way, so does Gatz in his reinvention of himself as Gatsby. Like the lower class Gatz, Jay-Z "ain't spose to be here"; he was born working class and they were born black. There is something that defies the odds in Jay-Z's success: as a young black man in postindustrial America--growing up in the Marcy Projects of Bed-Stuy--the statistics outline a grimmer fate. As he raps, "I'm supposed to be locked up," that is, in prison. Similarly, as a young working class man in industrial America, Gatz should never have made it even to West Egg.

The "spectroscopic gayety" of Gatsby's house parties is matched by the kaleidoscopic (almost epileptic!) bling bling of Jay and Ye in concert in the video for "Niggas in Paris" (49). Models and Gothic architecture are multiplied fantastically through digital effects throughout what is essentially a concert film. While Gatsby's mansion is a "factual imitation of some Hotel de Villein Normandy," it is Notre Dame de Paris that is appropriated by the rappers to evidence their presence in Paris and, more broadly, their "punctilious discrimination" (9). At roughly the 3 minute mark, the Parisian landmark is offered as bridge to Kanye's intro to the "Watch the Throne" theme. The whole Watch the Throne album at once a parallels Gatsby's celebrations of himself through his house parties and offers a social commentary on the meaning of such wealth similar to that in Fitzgerald's novel. While I for one was one of the first haters of the seemingly uncritical pomp of "Watch the Throne," like "East Egg condescending to West Egg," there is a social statement in the fact, as Jay raps in "Otis": "not bad, huh? for some immigrants" (49).

"Ball so hard, got a broke clock, Rolleys that don't tick tock

Audemars that's losing time, hidden behind all these big rocks."

Listening to Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Niggas in Paris," like many of their respective songs, requires a connoisseur's annotations for the multiple allusions to fashion and other luxury industries. We may know Gucci and Louis, at least by name, but Margiela? He's a Belgian fashion designer. Does Beyonce, like Daisy, cry at the beauty of Jay-Z's shirts? We may know about Rollex, but Audemars? Audemars Piguet is a Swiss luxury watchmaker with its origins in the nineteenth century. Jay's particular Audemars is so blinged out with diamonds that he can't even tell the time. We similarly need an encyclopedia to understand the many aristocratic allusions used to describe Gatsby's wealth: the "Marie Antoinette music rooms and Restoration salons" and "Adam study" of his West Egg mansion.

"I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town."

Gatsby's Rolls-Royce is an emphatic display of his wealth, an attempt to prove his financial prowess and taste to condescending East Eggers. His choice of Rolls is a classic one, though he may have chosen too many options to the point that the car appears garish rather than staid, its "labyrinth of windshields [mirroring] a dozen suns" (68). Something different is going on in Jay-Z and Kanye West's destruction and recreation of DaimlerChrysler AG's Maybach 57 in the video for "Otis." The car cost $350,000 to buy and $150,000 to take apart. They literally dismantle a symbol of old wealth and rebuild it according to their own specs, and then proceed to joy ride with a four models precariously piled in the back seat. As "gentleman of leisure," West and Z prove themselves "connoisseur[s] in creditable viands of various degrees of merit," but they also rewrite the book of etiquette for such conspicuous consumption. With their joyous chopping and then joy riding of the Maybach 57, Z and West flaunt their own misappropriation of old wealth; unlike Gatsby, they are not trying to be anything but themselves. The Maybach 57 was sold at auction with the proceeds benefitting East African drought relief.