Critical Excess: Watch the Throne and the New Gilded Age (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780472054879)

Jay-Z and Kanye West's 2011 Watch the Throne is a self-avowed "luxury rap" album centered on Eurocentric conceptions of nobility, artistry, and haute couture. Critical Excess performs a close reading of the sonic and social commentary on this album, examining how the album alternately imagines and critiques the mutually reinforcing ideas of Europe, nobility, old money, art, and their standard bearer, whiteness. Reading the album alongside Black critical theory and work on the prophetic nature of music, Rollefson argues that through their performance of black excellence, opulence, and decadence, Jay-Z and Kanye West poured gas on the white resentment of the Obama presidency--a resentment that would ultimately spill over into public life, make audible the dog whistling of the Far Right, and embolden white supremacists to come out from under their rocks. Ultimately, Rollefson argues, Jay-Z and Kanye West's performance of what Rollefson calls "critical excess" on this album exceeds the limits of conspicuous consumption and heralds the final stage of late capitalism--"the New Gilded Age."

Author: J. Griffith Rollefson
ISBN-10: 0472054872
ISBN-13: 9780472054879
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Language: English
Published: 06/07/2021
Pages: 234
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.98w x 0.63d

About the Author
J. Griffith Rollefson is professor of music at University College Cork, National University of Ireland. Rollefson is author of Flip the Script: European Hip Hop and the Politics of Postcoloniality.