Made It In America

On the new album Watch the Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye have a song called Made it in America. The song starts off with:

Sweet King Martin

Sweet Queen Coretta

Sweet Brother Malcolm

Sweet Queen Betty

Sweet Mother Mary

Sweet Father Joseph, Sweet Jesus

It is talking about Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Then it is talking about Malcolm X and his wife, Betty Shabazz. The last pair, Mary and Joseph, are obvious icons. These are the ones that helped them make it in America. King And Malcolm represent different aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm being the more extreme of the two. In King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he says that he stands “in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community.” One side includes the black nationalists like Malcolm that have given up on Christianity as an escape. The other side, with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, represents those who still have hope in religion and are more compliant to segregation.

The second verse goes on to say:

I pledge allegiance, uh, to my Grandma

For that banana pudding, our piece of Americana

Our apple pie was supplied through Arm & Hammer

Straight out the kitchen, shh don’t wake Nana!

Built a republic, that still stands

I’m trying to lead a nation, to leave to my little man’s

Or my daughter, so I’m boiling this water

The scales was lopsided, I’m just restoring order

Hold up, here comes grandma, what’s up YaYa?

What’s that smell? Oh I’m just boiling some aqua

No papa, bad Santa

The streets raised me, pardon my bad manners

I got my liberty, chopping grams up

Street justice, I pray God understand us

I pledge allegiance to all the scramblers

This is the Star Spangled Banner

The Grandma reference takes me back to our discussion of Professor McKinney’s gangsta grandmother in class one day. This woman is one of the many grandmothers who would try to keep her kids in check, but there is an obvious drug reference here. Jay-Z is rapping about making crack cocaine in his grandmother’s kitchen in order to “lead a nation” to leave to his children. This piece of America he is obtaining is founded through the drug economy, but he was raised by the streets. The American apple pie is funded by crack cocaine made with Arm & Hammer. He talks about lopsided scales working against him, which is the racial scales of society working against him. The streets have made him into a kind of person that he hopes God understands. This is the America, the Star Spangled Banner, that he is trying to expose that kids on the streets are dealing with. Granted Jay-Z and Kanye have “made it,” so to speak, this verse is clearly a sarcastic criticism of what people turn to for their own American Dream.