For decades, cinematic depictions of the music industry have stoked our imagination of what it is: homogenous, corrupt, controlled by small concentrations of power, beholden to an ideology that overvalues celebrity and lifestyle, a sector where products win and art always loses. On television, shows like MTV’s "Making the Band" confirmed our apprehension that there were industry executives using templates to assemble groups with the sole purpose of churning out hit records, a tacit corroboration of a Manichean understanding of art and commerce whereby art, in all its benevolence, remains inseparable from the dark forces of the corporate world. In film, stories like Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ functioned as a "started from the bottom, now we here" testimony to talent and perseverance (mainstream music, driven by the juggernaut of hip-hop, is, in part, responsible for the ubiquity of this idea as well). In each portrayal, an inherent emphasis is placed on the final product—the smash album, the hit single, the breakthrough moment, the realization of what the artist would become—with the process of getting there serving little utility, a hollow vehicle to transport us from one point to another.
In part, the way we interact with music—and art—feeds our penchant for finding value in the final work, not in the journey of how it came to be. So it’s understandable that our depictions of music and the industry behind it would track the type of engagement we are accustomed to. Indeed, it seems kind of unthinkable, and a bit impractical, to critically engage with an unfinished song or a half-complete painting. (As a writer, the thought of being evaluated on early drafts is terrifying.) Yet, there is something revealing, too, in how a work of art is completed: the process can tease out ideas about love and lust, power and celebrity, race and class, masculinity and misogyny, art and politics, all the same, just like the work itself.
In the first quarter of 2015, Fox’s "Empire", a melodrama about a hip-hop music mogul and his family which recently wrapped an enthralling first season, showed how powerful a meticulous lens focused on the how instead of the finished product could be. "Empire" homes in acutely on the important minor details of process that go into creating a finished work. What moves the plot forward are two events: the terminal illness of the family patriarch and protagonist, music artist-turned-mogul, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), and the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of his family-run company, Empire Entertainment. Both function as destinations, forcing upon us a new awareness of the arduous and unpredictable slog of music making.
"Empire" shows us how a finished musical masterpiece came to be, beginning with a careful examination of the mercurial and inexplicable nature of inspiration. In one such example, Lucious manages to evoke the best from his son, Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray), a rather glam struggle rapper and potential heir to his father’s lucrative business, with only a few words.
"I mean, it's really nice for some Girl Scouts," Luscious barks to Hakeem, who is sleepwalking through a verse. "But this ain't about being nice! You've got to go hard with this! Come harder."
"Alright. Let me hear the beat again," Hakeem replies, nodding his head in agreement. "I got something for you.”
When the beat drops, Hakeem magically transforms into an inspired, lyrical machine, bent on annihilating the microphone. The song, imbued with new life, transforms into a hit, much to the joy of Luscious, whom we are led to believe knew Hakeem had it in him all along.
It's difficult to determine exactly where the rapper's inner "beast" came from—was it Lucious or Hakeem? A light switch?—but what's clear is that if one were to only listen to the finished song Hakeem's inner-struggles as an artist finding his voice would not shine through at all. We would not know how slippery inspiration can be either. Instead, "Empire" gives a more nuanced answer that teeters between fraudulent and organic. Hakeem’s booth magic rivals that of Kendrick Lamar’s "Mortal Man"—the final track from his recent opus, To Pimp a Butterfly. On the track, Kendrick explains in a hypothetical conversation with his idol Tupac Shakur, "Sometimes I be like, get behind a mic and I don’t know what type of energy I’mma push out, or where it comes from. Trips me out sometimes." Tupac responds almost as cryptically: "We ain’t even really rappin’, we just letting our dead homies tell stories for us." In "Empire", artistic inspiration seems just as befuddling and fascinating.
An intimate window into the process of music making also gives a more robust portrait of who the artists are—that is, it reminds us that they, too, are works in progress as well. Whereas a finished work of art or a refined artistic brand crystallizes who the artist is at that moment, leaving us to hypothesize about what parts of their biography are woven in the work, the process of creation parallels an artist’s personal evolution, reminding us that they, too, are in flux. Such a reminder is all the more crucial considering industry practices of aligning an artist’s idiosyncrasies with their art (which can be incredibly profitable; see: Chris Brown).
In hip-hop, a predominantly black genre, the industry’s distillation of an artist’s persona to match or sell their art can adversely impact perceptions of their human complexity. On screen, careful packaging has the same effect: outlandish escapades and brash, non-white characters are reigned in and filtered (see: Eddie Huang and "Fresh Off the Boat"); human flaws are obfuscated and replaced with polished brands. On "Empire", one of the blackest shows in the history of television (guest stars and cameos include: Derek Luke, Raven-Symoné, Juicy J, Jennifer Hudson, Naomi Campbell, Snoop Dogg, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Patti LaBelle!) characters don’t fall prey to such temptation. Artists aren’t reduced or stripped of nuance at all. The show presents black artistry in way we are not accustomed to seeing: it’s unfettered, unqualified, unapologetic, a portrait in which idiosyncratic isn’t seen as exotic or alien; it’s normal.
Highlighting the many moving parts of the music industry can also more clearly show how the business interacts with the societal forces around it. As one looks at the moving gears, even "creative" ideas and innovation within the music industry are opened up and put under a microscope where they lay exposed, open to scrutiny from all angles.
In "Empire", the longer one meditates on the moving parts, the more the snapshot of the music industry develops. Talking points don’t hold up. Take, for instance, the move to convert Empire Enterprises from a family-owned business into a publicly traded company. "Times have changed," Lucious laments in the first episode. "The Internet has destroyed the musician’s ability to make money because our work is downloaded for free online, and now it’s impossible for the disenfranchised kids growing up in the projects to overcome poverty in the way that I did."
What Lucious is describing is not simply an archaic business model; it is, in part, a symptom of "modernity"—a condition the late American philosopher Marshall Berman describes as "an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are." Yet, Lucious, beholden to the lure of capitalism’s promise ("He only loves money," Hakeem reminds us), and possibly ignorant to modernist philosophy, proposes a market solution: "I am proud to announce that Empire Entertainment has filed to become a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange," Lucious boldly proclaims.
The IPO represents an old belief that capitalism can solve its own problems. In going public, Lucious is implicitly saying capitalism can answer threats posed by a complex modern world simply by adjusting his capitalistic strategy. Of course, what Lucious sidesteps or disregards in his nostalgic decree is how his opportunity to "get out of poverty" owes a debt to modernity as well (there would be no portable keyboards, MPCs, and burnable discs without mass production). The iTunes age he lambasts—more democratized, lower overhead, fewer barriers to entry, where anyone with an internet connection and a mobile device can record and disseminate music—is indebted to technology, too. In the last episode, once Empire goes public and Lucious is arrested for murder, his company’s stock prices plummet. We may not know at the moment if Empire will bounce back, but it is easily discernible that technology will continue to revolutionize the music industry. Sure, Lucious’s idea sounds creative, dextrous, and inspiring; but it’s really kind of silly.
One might wonder how the same kind of creativity holds up in the real world. Last week, Jay Z, whom Lucious’s character is very loosely based, announced the launch of Tidal, a new "artist-driven" streaming service that will likely compete with the increasingly-popular Spotify, the legendary Pandora, and a soon to be released service by Apple. Already, a number of 1%-er mainstream artists have offered their support: Beyoncé, Usher, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Kanye West, and J. Cole. The goal, ostensibly, is to solve the problem of artists getting swindled out of their profits by Internet downloads and free streaming. "We’re actually here to improve the landscape," Jay says. But, like Lucious’s IPO, it remains to be determined whether or not the service will solve the problems of industry caused by the moving parts of the modern world.
At the same time, one also wonders if Jay’s business move is a moving piece within a bigger process as well. Perhaps Tidal is not so much about his product as much as critics and analysts have suggested. Rather, what Tidal may be is the beginning of a legacy that hasn’t yet been determined. Consider Jay’s words at the press conference announcing the venture. "If just the presence of Tidal causes other companies to have better pay structure, or to pay more attention to it moving forward, then we’ve been successful in one way," Jay says. "I don’t know where streaming will go in the future. The analytics that we’re seeing tell us that streaming is the next thing, and downloads are going down. I feel like with the history of this platform, from vinyl to where we are now, it just seems like the next logical step."
On screen, it’s hard not to feel as if "Empire" is pouring a foundation of its own, similar to Hov. While the show illustrates the process of building an empire, it is simultaneously laying the groundwork for a legacy that will last even when it no longer is around. As a show about the hard work and sacrifice of a black family trying to build something for the future, "Empire" furnishes quite the allegory to its legacy in a Hollywood notorious for its lack of diversity: the work of changing the game is arduous and the stakes are incredibly high. Sure, the show is brilliant—that is, as a product "Empire" achieves everything it intended and then some—but it is more than an amazing work of art. "Empire" is one catalyst in the slow process of change.
Legacies are not built overnight.