White cannibalism.!

In 2003 a new edition of Equiano’s interesting narrative was released with a slight yet extremely significant difference: Rapper and entrepreneur Jay-z graced the novels cover. Jay-z, a critically acclaimed artist, is distanced from both the subject and author of the work – but only literally. Metaphorically Jay-z and Equiano have attained similar goals. Equiano’s work is noted as an abolitionist text; a text that adamantly supported the abolition of slavery and advocated  black peoples freedom in Western Europe and the America’s. Jay-z’s Black Album creates an identical impact. While Jay-z is not writing for the physical abolition of slavery, as it was abolished in 1833 (1865 in north America), his work advocates for the deconstruction of black images that have become essentialized mythologies.

 Jay-z’s Black Album, a play on the Beatles White Album, brandishes a fourteen song collection of politically charged rap music. In his song Moment of Clarity Jay-Z discusses the importance of his “truth” as an American black man. He begins his song by “thanking god” for the clarity to both see the true world and expose it. He states that this “moment of clarity” is both a gift and a curse, given that he can see the worlds errors but it also plagued by them. Jay-z writes “The music business hate me cause the industry ain't make me. Hustlers and boosters embrace me and the music i be makin’. I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars. They criticize me for it, yet they all yell "Holla". If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be lyricly: Talib Kweli.” (Jay-Z. Moment of Clarity). Jay-z uses this verse in the song to expand on how the “business” resents him. He traces this resentment to the fact that the industry did not create him, and furthermore that he differs from the pre-packaged images of black people the “business” pumps out. He goes on to talk about making his music more accessible. He mentions that he “dumb[s] down” his lyrical content for the audience and in turn makes more money. This audience he speaks of is presumably a white audience because both ownership and consumption of rap is statistically at its height among young white men. In the last line where Jay-z cites that if rapping skills mattered he would be equivalent to the superiority of Talib Kweli, he brings attention to many significant points. For one he exposes the fact that rap is not considered a legitimate form of music by writing “if” at the beginning of his last thought. “If” signifies an alternate universe; something that is pre-verbal. That which is referenced through “If” has not happened, and in this case is an inescapable reality. The reality that Jay-z is referring to is one where rap is not considered a skill, but if it were he would be comparable to a Talib Kweli. Talib Kweli, because he considered (alternative) hip hop, does not fall under the same white surveillance as Jay-z.  Alternative hip hop is stigmatized as the talented 10th version of a perceivably inferior original form of music in black society, but through white perception. 

In a more popular cut from his album, 99 Problems, Jay-z details specificity of problems black men face in American culture. Jay-z writes:
The year is '94 and in my trunk is raw. 

In my rear view mirror is the mother fucking law.

I got two choices yall pull over the car or bounce on the double put the pedal to the floor. 

Now I ain't trying to see no highway chase with jake plus I got a few dollars I can fight the case. 

So I...pull over to the side of the road and I heard "Son do you know why I'm stopping you for?" 

Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hats real low, do I look like a mind reader sir, I don't know. 

Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo? 

"Well you was doing fifty five in a fifty four. License and registration and step out of the car. Are you carrying a weapon on you I know a lot of you are" I ain't stepping out of shit all my papers legit. 

"Do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?" 

Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back and I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that. 

"Aren't you sharp as a tack are some type of lawyer or something? Or somebody important or something?" Nah I ain't pass the bar but I know a little bit enough that you won't illegally search my shit. 

"We’ll see how smart you are when the K-9's come". I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one. Hit me  --(Jay-z, 99 Problems).

This quote opens expounds upon the black male experience. Jay-z writes about being stopped by the police and after being asked if he knew why he was stopped brazenly answers “[be]cause I’m young, black, and my hat is low…” Jay-z is referencing that young black males, fitting a list of criteria, are often stopped by police, and that subsequently young black men are reduced to an essentialist consumable portrait. The portrait being “consumable” because it fits the rubric of the primitive, dangerous, black demon construction. Jay-z moves forward to discuss the absurdity of black male perceptions. He talks about the officer asking if he’s carrying and weapon, and before he can answer filling in the blank with “I know a lot of you are.” Here, Jay-z is exposing how white people consume images to black people to the point where they transfer everything to fact. The use “I know” at the beginning of the officers sentence signifies certainty, thought logically he cannot be sure. However it is not logic driving the officers thought process; it is a perception – a mythology. The reason this pathology becomes widely accepted is because of the legacy of blackness being represented as “dangerous” and constantly in reference to hell. One of his last thoughts on the issue is a detailed conversation between the officer and young black male. The young black male is trying to relay that he has no drugs, weapons, or alcohol – that he has done nothing wrong. The officer takes this as mocking and retorts “we’ll see how smart you are when the k-9’s come” asserting his authority and affirmation that the black male was breaking the law. Jay-z bravely asserts this collection of black male experiences as fact. He makes it a point to detail the consequences of a consuming – or rather cannibalistic white culture.

The work of black writers is highly aware of its consumable contexts. Equiano’s narrative and Jay-z’s album both engage in, with, and assert, a cancerous wave of white consumption. What they are both doing is inverting the stereotype that black people – or demons – will eat and consume you. The descriptions of literal threats of being consumed, as displayed in Equinao’s narrative, are mirrored in Jay-z’s metaphorical descriptions of being consumed through his music. The two men aim to invert and destabilize the black “cannibal” mythology. They do so by turning that critique back onto white society and pointing out the obvious ways that white people are the ultimate consumers – and thus cannibals in their own right.