Above you will find 'Niggas In Paris', one of the finer cuts from the excellent Jay-Z/Kanye West collaboration of last year 'Watch The Throne'. In which you will find two of the wealthiest musicians working today rapping about how wonderful it is to be wealthy, and what a magnificent life it is that they live. It's such a wild celebration of indulgence that it's almost a comedy of excess. The album, and tour, continue to make even more money for Jay and Ye, taking them ever further away from their humble beginnings.
Below you will find 'Niggas In Poorest' by Yasiin Bey (who until September last year was rapping under the name Mos Def), which uses the same backing track and lyrical structure to paint a picture of the struggle that the average African American is more likely to encounter.
I only stumbled across this cover today, and I've listened to it at least a dozen times. There's something compelling about his conviction, and I love the way he's subverted a popular track to make his statement. I was just going to post it on facebook with the rest of my video trawl, but I thought it was worth a little more coverage than that.
And that keyboard riff is genius. I imagine we'll be hearing that for decades.
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