Today, I came across the article "Word: Jay-Z’s “Decoded” and the language of hip-hop" Kelefa Sanneh on the New York Times online site. ( http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/12/06/101206crat_atlarge_sanneh#ixzz17Gj7eHOA.) The article provides examples of different people (academics, rappers) creating books which anthologize and annotate rap lyrics with attention to poetic devices and tropes. This intersection of elite scholarly techniques and what is typically seen as music out of the under/lower/working classes is relevant (and perhaps exemplary) to the concept we have recently learned about of "embourgeoisement". What struck me most clearly was a paragraph that perfectly portrays the difference between economic and cultural capital, as theorized by Bordieu:

"One day four years ago, Jay-Z was reading The Economist when he came across an article bearing the heading “Bubbles and Bling.” The article was about Cristal, the expensive champagne that figured in the rhymes of Jay-Z and other prominent rappers. In the article, Frédéric Rouzaud, the managing director of the winery behind Cristal, was asked whether these unsought endorsements might hurt his brand. “That’s a good question, but what can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it,” he said, adding, slyly, “I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.” Jay-Z was irritated enough that he released a statement vowing never to drink Cristal again, and he started removing references to Cristal from his old lyrics during concerts. (He eventually switched his endorsement to Armand de Brignac.) In Jay-Z’s view, Rouzaud had not only insulted hip-hop culture; he had violated an unspoken promotional arrangement. “We used their brand as a signifier of luxury and they got free advertising and credibility every time we mentioned it,” he writes. “We were trading cachet.” (Actually, the book, not free of typos, says “cache.”)"

Although Jay-z has the economic capital to purchase Cristal, the managing director of Cristal denies his cultural capital to display the product. Clearly, Jay-Z's conception of "credibility" is not the same credibility Cristal aims to convey to its customers, nor does the company want to be associated with "free advertising." In successfully alienating Jay-z, Cristal is able to maintain its elite status, while enforcing class distinctions, although perhaps minimizing its economic capital. The perception of cultural capital is dominant in this paragraph as the interviewer of Frédéric Rouzaud questioned not what the endorsement would do for Cristal, but if "it would hurt his brand." The implication that the upper-middle and perhaps upper class customers would be turned of the product because of its popular celebrity status assumes these classes are constantly working to distinguish themselves form the mainstream popular. I don't know any of the statistics, but it would be interesting to see if Cristal took a loss when Jay-z began his boycott.

This section of the article exemplifies the different perceptions of "cache"/"cahet" and presumably how Jay-z is welcoming the process of embourgeoisement while Cristal is denying it.


Here is an older blog about the prevalence of Cristal in rap lyrics:
http://newmediasphere.blogs.com/nms/2004/12/bring_on_the_bl.html