4:44 An Examination of the failings of men loving women through Rap; Or, We Can Love Black Women Better Than This
Rap is all about the male ego, the gravitas, the brashness, the bravado, yet Jay-Z opens his latest effort with a funeral for his ego. Directly, the listener can make the connection between this contrite, broken, damaged, humbled Jay-Z and the Lemonade album that was less an album and more a tour de force and public exposition on what being married to men does to women; but specifically what being married to Black men like Jay-Z does to Black women like Beyonce. If Lemonade was a mirror for Black men to look at and face the ugly reflections of our repercussions with Black women, then 4:44 is the closet we sat in and cried our eyes out in after we realized how badly we had broken the women we said we loved and our vows simultaneously. It is in this space that our egos demand to be destroyed, buried or cremated, and raised up as humility and contrition. Or as Jay-Z himself says:
Die Jay Z, this ain’t back in the days
You don’t need an alibi, Jay Z
Cry Jay Z, we know the pain is real
But you can’t heal what you never reveal
Jay-Z also references the infamous Solange elevator fight, essentially admitting that he knew she was right the whole time and also awkwardly blaming his absence for a miscarriage. However, knowing what I know about stress, I do not doubt that Jay-Z feels responsible for the miscarriage and the stress of a pregnant Beyonce knowing that her husband is continually unfaithful, but he does not say that. He blames the miscarriage on his absence, which though it may not be a literal absence, can still be taken that way given the opacity of the song’s overall tone. I must say that men who apologize for our part in miscarriages are rare, be it a miscarriage of children or a miscarriage of standing up for Black women when they too are gunned down by the police, or oppressed by this society in any number of ways. The words “I’m sorry” do not come from the lips of men often enough, and that is a sadly commendable phrasing from a man who is not often used to saying it. He then fumbles his words, misshapes an apology into a mistake and the listener is left to wonder what our words should be when we continually stress Black women out, and our “I’m sorry” does nothing to heal their deepest pains we have caused.
Too often, as Black men we stress our mothers out. They tell us what not to do, who not to hang out with, where not to go. We think we grown. We break their hearts. We betray their love because we take it for granted, because we tend to take a mother’s love as something that is ours. We are entitled, we are selfish and we don’t do enough to fully understand her sacrifices. Jay-Z’s first verses on “Smile” illuminates these facts using his mother’s sexual orientation as a lynchpin while painting the picture of a son who unconditionally loved and loves his mother despite coming up in the projects. Jay-Z now as a man of 47, is undoubtedly seeing and experiencing for himself some of the sacrifices his mother had to make for him. Jay-Z gives his mother space to write and to tell her own story, and I suspect that much of the chorus is borrowed from many a speech Gloria Carter gave to her son about being thankful. Too often, it takes us too long to understand our mothers, to fully love and appreciate our mothers. Gloria Carter implores us to live according to who we are and not who the world thinks we should be, especially as it relates to who we love. Smile touches upon an important relationship in the lives of every Black man, and that is the relationship with his mother. Here, given the overall tone of the album, it is a breaking of the commonly held ideal that a man with a good relationship with his mother will be a good husband. Every cis-heterosexual man who loves his mama won’t love his wife, and every cis-het man who loves his wife might not love his mama. However, if our relationships as heterosexual men mean anything to us, arguably the two most important, most valued relationships in our lives are with our mothers and our wives and we should see that we honor both of these women with the respect, the humility, and the love that they deserve. We love these women best by letting them be free around us, allowing ourselves to become their refuges in a world that doubly hates them.
If Gloria Carter’s sexuality is the lynchpin on “Smile” then Jay-Z’s infidelity is the dominant theme on the title track 4:44; Jay drops the bravado, he drops the swag, he opens up the closet and lets us look at all his skeletons. He’s been a bad husband and objectively a bad father while still being present with his children. He admits that it wasn’t until Blue (Blue Ivy Carter) was born that he wanted to slow down and become a better man, a better husband, a better father. This is a common theme with us as men, as Black men. It should not take having daughters to make us care about the women we are in relationships with, about women period, but it does. It takes small women to make us understand that the grown women are not playthings, they are not disposable poseable action figures or blow up sex dolls, but people with feelings and dreams and desires. I mean we know this, we know this on a basic human level sure, but it is the difference between knowledge and action that women find us lacking. In principle we know women are humans, that they bleed, cry, feel, experience pain like we do; but we think it’s different because they didn’t come from us. Why are we not trying to understand Black women who are not from us, who share no connection with us? It is because we feel entitled to them, the same as we feel entitled to our mother’s love. Shawn Carter is not the only Black man to have spent fifteen, twenty years of his adult life fucking up Black women; and some of us are on our third decade of fucking up Black women simply because we don’t want to be better Black men to Black women. We owe it to Black women, we owe it to ourselves to be be better partners, better listeners, better lovers, and more understanding of Black women. We do not own them. They are not ours, they have no obligation to be with us and it is best we quickly remedy ourselves. We have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that they will always be here, because if we keep fucking up and being fuckboys and trying to control them, we will die old, alone, and bitter Black men. Black women, the Black girls we produce are not here to save us. It is best we learn how to save ourselves by learning how to adequately love, respect and cherish Black women.
The most addictive thing about hip-hop stems from its most destructive. The swag, the bravado, the ego; it is not until a man loses his ego that he is free to become all that he could be and should be. On 4:44, there is not much that Jay-Z teaches us about becoming better Black men for Black women, but there is a lot that he teaches us through mistakes. Through not doing it right, through not loving Beyonce right, through his own regrets. The most seductive thing about hip hop is the bravado, it is the inherent allure of masculinity that shines like a diamond stud. Thing about masculinity though, is it’s not going to keep you humble when you almost lost it all trying to have it all when it’s all you can do to hold onto what you have. That’s the thing about our manhood and about our hip hop, it is used to excess, it is used to performing as though it has when it lacks, it is used to lying and being lied to so it can hold itself afloat. That’s the thing about men. Once our ego is broken, and our lies are exposed, and our excess is made meaningless, it is then you see the true us, the real us, the us that needs work. Truthfully, we all need work when it comes to seeing Black women. This project does not have much in the way of that to offer, even though this project did offer the most humble, the most broken, and the most human version of Jay-Z to date. I think that says something about the way this society conditions men, and I think it’s going to take a lot longer than a thirty minute album to unpack all of our issues. But that’s the business of life I think, once you start thinking about the work you have to do, the toxicity and the unhealthy masculinity you are required to unlearn, the more you start to critically examine yourself and then everything you digest. What I am left with after 4:44 is ultimately a reflection of myself and a choice of who I will be with the rest of my life. It is clear that we, I, men, Black men need to become better to the Black women in our lives. I believe that we owe it to them to try.
