Jay-Z/Linkin Park - Numb/Encore (WEA)

The hybrid is a cantankerous beast. Never content to simply accept, it, as a direct result of non-conformity, wishes to act, to be the changer. However there is always the suspicion that Jay Z, Linkin Park and others of their ilk perpetuate an outmoded, nineteenth-century belief in music's ability to rise above the circumstances of political, cultural, and social change, to overcome, as an enduring continuity, the grand discursive web of racialist representations.

Certainly the critical interventions represented by these musicians warn us against overemphasizing the blues muse in contemporary pop (hence the emotional arrow of the lyric "every step I take"), but at the same time, however, I think it is fruitful to recognize the importance of the blues modality in conjoined black/white culture. It is, indeed, true that the romance of folk authenticity has been extremely influential in shaping how we think about race, but against the backdrop of edgy chainsaw riffs, throaty vocal dares and stacked organic beats we must ask, “is the romantic authenticity disparaged in Numb/Encore identical to the in-group consciousness upon which revolutions were founded”? If yes, then fuck me, this is good. If not, well, it’s back to the drawing board for nu-metal's baggy-trousered philanthropists.