For Jay-Z wealth and fame are not by-products of success. In Jigga’s world, bling and art are indistinguishable – the bling, how you wear it, how it wears you, is the art. From the start he’s elevated hip hop’s traditional obsession with crass commerciality to a state of meta commentary – he rhymes about Rolexes and smart-phones with the sort of faux profundity other rappers reserve for expressing their deepest feelings. It’s entirely possible that Jay-Z’s thoughts on fancy watches and consumer hardware, do, in fact, constitute his deepest feelings.
Of course, the problem with fame and wealth is that, eventually, you stop noticing it. Almost 20 years into his career, the former Brooklyn drug dealer is nowadays a millionaire art enthusiast, basketball franchise part-owner and exchanger of emoticons with the President. He’s old new money – so how does he rap about it without coming off as jaded and hackneyed?
That seems to be the conundrum Magna Carta sets out to address. Jigga is trying to make an exciting record about how boring celebrity eventually gets to be. However, he does too good a job of conjuring the emptiness of uber-wealth: references to his collection of Jeff Koons dog balloons may be intended as a commentary on rich dude braggadocio – but it’s possible they just are rich dude braggadocio. You look for a wink only to discover Jay-Z isn’t the winking type.
The beats, fortunately, are seismic, occasionally irresistible. Supplied by Justin Timberlake wing-man Timbaland, Magna Carter’s repertoire of grooves constitute some of the most dynamic Jay-Z has ever worked against. On opener ‘Holy Grail’ he delivers a blunt flow about the pressures of fame, the endless ways it drains your soul, as rhythms yammer and clank like the ghosts of hip hop past. Next, JT leaps in, crooning a bastardised version of the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ chorus. The ultimate tortured, self-destructive artist, Kurt Cobain, it is implied, would have understood how Jay-Z feels.
Alas the brags frequently eclipse the ennui. On ‘Picasso Baby’ Jay-Z recites a laundry list of his favourite art pieces. The moral we are supposed to take away is that mere physical possessions - even Picassos and Koons – do not necessarily make you a more interesting or spiritual person, a point that is conveyed with brain calcifying efficiency.
In the same vein, ‘Tom Ford’ is a shallow song about shallow living: the chorus is the title repeated over and over (and over... and over...) It’s as if Jay-Z is trying to think us into submission by sounding as bored as possible, even as Timbaland’s brisk tempos work hard at keeping you awake.
Tellingly, the best moments are from guest stars Frank Ocean and Jigga’s missus, Beyoncé. On ‘Oceans’, the former appears to be rhyming about the flooding of his native New Orleans, his syrupy croon full of ache. Bey, meanwhile, pops up on ‘Part II (On The Run’), an ‘Empire State Of Mind’-scale torch song built on a looping piano riff. The lesson seems to be that, with other people around to provide distraction, Jay-Z can still rise to greatness. Left to his own devices – his own indulgences and obsessions – his music is in danger of becoming as emptied out as the lifestyle he aspires to critique.