It’s funny to already be looking back at Jay-Z’s Cristal boycott but it turned out to be a short lived phenomenon.  Though I haven’t conducted an exhaustive search of the obvious suspects, mainstream media mostly treated the event as a passing news brief and Jay-Z pretty much abandoned it after the initial press release.

But there are some interesting points to note regarding this brief media event.  For example, a blogger came up with the idea of a Cristal boycott, an idea that caught many’s attention, a blogger pointed out what it would take to make the boycott something more than a gesture among members of the upper class and a blogger broke down why such a boycott could not be viewed as relevant to the needs of the black community.

Whichever perspectives you share, the event signaled to me the untapped social and political power of someone in Jay-Z’s situation to disseminate a message.  In this case, though the boycott may not have gone far enough to become serious news, it was readily picked up by media outlets and independent writers.

It’s been interesting to check out comments at various blogs including Nah Right, Hip Hop Blogs and Luxist, though understanding the demographics of the commenters is guesswork at best.  For example, even though some blogs do demographic surveys, I’ve yet to see one that asks if the survey taker comments regularly.  In any case, the comments are quite mixed.

At Nah Right and Hip Hop Blogs there were an interesting range of folks looking at the topic from a variety of perspectives including supporting Jay-Z even though they might not care about Cristal, taking the opportunity to point out that they don’t drink (the numbers of those surprised me) and attacking the role of conspicuous consumption in hip hop.  I think both here and at the other blogs, a number of people seemed most interested in making Roederer pay for what was taken as racist statements, whatever their take on the boycott itself.

At Luxist the mix was also surprising but it’s hard to know if those who thought it was a good move for Roederer and dissed associations with hip hop are actually representative of any particular class, ongoing haters of rap or people using rap as a way to promote stereotypes while getting a pass as cultural critics.  It should be noted that Jay-Z had supporters there as well.

At Davey D’s, Davey emerged as a surprising advocate for seeing Jay-Z’s move as a worthy political effort.  However, many of his respondents dismissed the whole matter as trivial and not worth supporting or as worth supporting since it did appear to be an instance of racism but not worth spending much time on.  Here’s where you see many more folks taking a stance similar to Adisa Banjoko’s.

So even a limited sample of commentary at active spots show a range of opinions.  Though you can’t judge Jay-Z’s support without looking offline, he didn’t have the over the top following that I initially imagined.  But his ability to catch people’s attention about something other than a new album should give him something to think about.

I have to say, I would so love to hear the conversations that have involved folks like Jay-Z, Russell Simmons and Puffy, whether or not they ever talked to each other, though I imagine it’s at times like these that Russell gets a phone call.  It’s quite obvious that Jay-Z decided not to make a bigger thing out of it but I’d love to know how those guys really look at these things and it’s quite unlikely we’ll know anytime soon.  Since hip hop lacks serious investigative reporting and business analysis regarding a wide variety of topics, most of what we get is entertainment news and lots of quotes that may or may not be true.

To be honest, one of my goals at ProHipHop was to see if there was a place for serious business news coverage in hip hop, even within the limits of a blog.  Because I’ve always taken a variety of roles at ProHipHop, serving as news aggregator, serious editorialist, off the wall blogger, cultural critic, etc., this blog is not really a good test of the market for hard news and analysis.  Nevertheless, I’ve gotten a pretty clear sense that the market for such material is relatively limited, though I believe a National Enquirer type publication could do quite well.  I also still believe that a more traditional industry coverage style focused on hip hop or hip hop and R&B would work, however no one seems to have fully realized that model yet, though some have made incomplete attempts.

Obviously one of the limits of investigative hip hop journalism is the very real presence throughout hip hop’s history of verbal and physical assaults upon journalists that actually violate many human rights standards and international standards related to freedom of the press.  It appears that the more access to the powerful that one has in hip hop, the less room to operate is available.  It’s a catch-22 that’s far worse than the White House press encounters and, because it’s profitable to capitulate, most everyone plays the game.

That’s not to say that investigating behind the scenes activity necessarily puts one in danger.  Actually, being a music critic seems to be the most vulnerable position in hip hop but that’s because they end up saying the hardest things.  For the most part, we don’t have any great examples of investigative hip hop journalism and no indication that a profitable market exists for such investigation.  Given that most journalists who care are drawn to much more basic issues facing black people in crisis proportions, we’re unlikely to see such journalism emerge anytime in the near future.

If you’re still reading at this point, thanks.  If not, I understand.  I’ll be back soon with hip hop marketing coverage but I need a cup of coffee.  Peace!

By the way, special thanks to Henry Adaso at About.com for including me and Adisa in his roundup on this topic.

The Complete Account:
ProHipHop Coverage & Analysis of Jay-Z’s Cristal Boycott