Trendsetter Jay-z Continues His "Trend Ending" Trend

In the daily evolution and ever changing industry of hip hop, rappers dream of setting trends as being a trendsetter in this industry can lead to substantial publicity, increased popularity as well as massive record sales. Leave it to the self proclaimed "Best rapper alive" to start a new trend of ending other trends. I know that seems like a paradox but let me reiterate- Jay-Z is starting a trend of ending other trends in the industry. Since I'm sure the previous sentence is a bit perplexing at the least let me expand a little on this. Jay-Z, whom I consider to be a great display of greatness at its' greatest has never been one to follow other rappers or to follow the trends of the industry- instead he starts trends and it is safe to say he started some pretty substantial trends.

For instance, Jay Z was one of the first rappers to start a clothing line and one of the only ones to make a profit outside of Russell Simmons' Phat Farm, Sean Combs' Sean John, and Nelly's Vokal and Apple Bottom imprints. By creating the Roc-A-Fella brand he became one of the first rap moguls. The Rocawear brand saw sales in excess of $700 million dollars last year and Jay-Z sold his rights to the company to Iconix in 2007 for a reported $204 million. He was one of the first rappers to promote a liquor brand not only via song lyrics but via commercial advertising as well, a trend quickly followed by Diddy with his Ciroc promos and Nas' and Rakim's Heineken promos. He has contracts with both Ace of Spades as well as Budweiser and also has his own brand of liquor, Armandale, which is yet another trend-having your own beverage, that Jay-Z has birthed i.e. Camron's sizzurp and Lil John's Crunk Juice. Furthermore, Mr. Carter started a trend by purchasing a minority stake in the New Jersey Nets, which was soon followed by Nelly's acquisition of a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats and Usher's purchase of a stake in a sports team. In recent years, his admission that he doesn't write any of his lyrics down and more or less freestyles all of his songs have led to several prominent rappers such as Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy stating the same. All in all Jay-Z started the hip hop mogul trend, the liquor promotion and subsequent owning trend, the club/ restaurant trend with 40/40, the free styling trend, trend of having his own shoe brand(Run DMC promoted Adidas but didn't own the brand) , the trend of owning a stake in sports teams as well as countless other trends.

Now that we have somewhat covered the trends that the "king of trendsetting" has kick started, we can look at the trends that he has subsequently brought to a screeching halt. First off on the list is Jay-Z's assassination of the infamous display of ostentatious spending known as the "throwback jersey" trend. A few years ago, the hottest trend in hip hop was the sporting of "authentic" sports jersey that retailed for upwards of $300-$400 a piece. People were going to painstaking measures to acquire the rarest of rare jerseys and quickly amassing closets whose contents held tens of thousands of dollars in jerseys. All until Jay-Z proclaimed "I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30 plus/ give me a crisp pair of jeans and a button up". This two bar proclamation over night halted the jersey trend and sent the sale of the superfluously expensive jerseys plummeting. Unexpectedly, the sale of button up shirts, Evisu jeans and S.Dot tennis shoes sky rocketed and brought about the "grown man trend" in style to this day.

When Jay-Z felt as if the owner of Cristal Champagne made a racist remark, he quickly boycotted the brand as well as the rap trend of heavy consumption of the liquor as a sign of opulence. Once again, this trend of spending thousands of dollars of multiple bottles of the $300 dollar per bottle champagne was halted in its tracks and soon Jay-Z's newest commercial endeavor Ace of Spades was the drink of choice. A further example of his influence over trends and commercial products is his statement "we don't drive X5's/ we give 'em to baby mamas". This lyric was an allusion to the BMW brand crossover SUV X5 and led to females overtaking males as the choice buyer of the vehicle model.

Jay-Z has now embarked on his newest trend ending campaign with his release of "Death of Autotune" one of the singles for his Blueprint 3 album, which will be released on September 11^th, 2009. The No I.D. produced and Kanye West assisted track was unofficially released via freestyle fashion during one of Jay-Z's recent concerts and officially released to large fanfare following the 2009 BET awards and has a lot of industry people debating whether it was a godsend or redundant given the over saturation of usage the voice pitch analyzer technology has seen recently in the rap community.

When T-Pain arrived on the hip hop scene a few years ago people considered him silly for his use of the Autotune device, which like the Roger Troutman popularized Vocodor device, tweaks a person's voice to more or less of that of a synthesized robot. After T-Pain continued to crank out hit after hit and basically took over the "hook singing" market, any and everyone in the rap world jumped on the bandwagon and began producing songs using the device. As extremely less talented singers and rappers started to imitate T-Pain's Autotune assisted delivery method, soon enough it was impossible to find songs that didn't use the device-and then there was Jay-Z and his "Death of Autotune". The song which utilizes French composer Janko Nilovic's "In the Space" was created by Jay-Z upon his hearing a Wendy's commercial using the Autotune device and is an ode to the end of the Autotune trend by everyone outside of its main user T-Pain as well as Kanye West and Lil Wayne, all of which relied on it heavily for multiple tracks with Kanye West devoting an entire album to the usage of the device titled "808's & Heartbreaks" and Lil Wayne pursuing an R & B album utilizing the device titled "LuvSawngz".

This song has garnered a lot of debate among people as some feel as if Jay-Z's seemingly parental propensity to persuade people from doing things he deems unfavorable is still necessary. Jay-Z used the "cessation of excessive usage of Autotune" theme as the vehicle for his newest song which among other things is a call to action for rappers who aren't giving 110% and subsequently watering down the substance and lyrical ability in today's music. With lyrics like "This is anti-autotune, death of the ringtone /This ain't for iTunes, this ain't for sing-along/This is Sinatra at the opera, bring a blonde/ Preferably who can sing a song" with "Death of Autotune" Jay-Z is basically telling rappers that they need to regain focus and dedicate their time to making sure their material is well composed and classic i.e. Frank Sinatra, instead of pursuing the quick money that comes with songs that are catchy and sell a lot of ring tones but lack substance. While alluding to iTunes, it seems as if Jay-Z is letting rappers know that an album as a whole needs to be cohesive and that the popularity of downloading singles from iTunes is leading rappers to release albums that have no common theme and seem randomly chosen like a compilation CD. Instead of worrying about how many songs they can have in the top selling list on iTunes, rappers need to be concerned about creating and mastering a CD that as a whole can be a top selling album due to its creativity and lyrical ability.

Further on in the song with the lyrics "I want n----s to feel threatened/ Stop your blood clot crying/ The kid the dog everybody dying/ No lyin, your n---s' jeans too tight/ Your colors too bright, your voice too light /I might wear black four years straight/ I might bring back Versace shades" the man who once said " I'm not a biter/ I'm a writer/ for myself and others/ if I say a BIG verse/ I'm only biggin' up my brother/ I'm big enough to do it/ I'm that thorough", uses a Notorious B.I.G. verse to let rappers know that he is serious about his proclamation and that the people in the industry need to start acting less feminine with their tight jeans, vibrantly colored clothing, and quiet voices and start acting masculine again like in times past. With the lyric about "wearing black four years straight" he is alluding to the mourning and eventual death of hip hop, which unless a change in the industry takes place, is surely on the horizon.

Towards the end of the song Jay-Z states "You n---s singin too much/ Get back to rap you T-Pain'n too much/ Ah, I'm a multi-millionaire/ So how is it I'm still the hardest n-a here?/ I don't be in the project hallway/ Talkin' bout how I be in the project all day/ That sounds stupid to me/", basically reiterating to the industry people that it almost feels as if the thirst and hunger once found in music is gone, replaced by entertainers who are more concerned about their proposed and often fabricated "street cred" as well as their inability to be creative-instead relying on other people's innovative methods of delivery i.e. T-Pain. Jay-Z wants the old hip hop game back, not the beat heavy, lyrically soft, catchy sing-a-long styled music that is currently being produced.

Jay-Z is an appreciator of evolution of character via innovation and has himself morphed multiple times during his career to keep up with the changing habits of hip hop. He went from hustler to hip hop mogul from a business man to a business...man. He has dedicated his career to the development of his chosen craft and its advancement as an accepted genre of music and the current class of rappers are destroying everything he and other rap forefathers worked so hard to create. With almost two decades in the rap game under his belt, Jay-Z has every right to chastise the younger entertainers, most of whom have been alive barely longer than Jay-Z's career, as they are diluting the industry and leading to its demise. "Death of Autotune" is a welcome change in the way things are going in the industry and nothing less than a call to action before Nas' album "Hip Hop is Dead" prophetically becomes true.

Overall, "Death of Autotune" has everything hit record needs- a catchy beat and hook by the way of obscure 40 year old samples, great production by way of No I.D. and Kanye West, great lyrics by way of the "God MC" Jay-Z himself, and controversy via the whole autotune debate itself. The song is a great call to action for the current rappers in the industry and looks like another hit record for Jay-Z, a single that will help propel Jay-Z to an unprecedented 11^th straight number one album when The Blueprint 3 is released on September 11^th, 2009. Nah Nah Nah Nah, Hey Hey Hey, Good Bye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blueprint_3

http://www.metrolyrics.com/death-of-autotune-lyrics-jayz.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z