What to make of this?

JAY-Z BOYCOTTS CRISTAL

Jay-Z [Shawn Corey Carter] spent a good deal of his rap career name-checking Cristal champagne in songs like “Can’t Knock the Hustle” and “Dead President’s II,” but he’s now saying “n to the nizzo” to the brand.

[Jay-Z] the former rapper and current Def Jam CEO told the Associated Press:

“It has come to my attention that the managing director of Cristal, Frederic Rouzaud, views the ‘hip-hop’ culture as ‘unwelcome attention.’ I view his comments as racist and will no longer support any of his products through any of my various brands including the 40/40 Club nor in my personal life.”

(Caught by surprise, Pave belatedly joins Mr. Carter in welcoming the race of bling -- or is it hip-hop? -- to the family of man. We just didn't know. Phylogenesis is so dizzying.)

Mr. Carter is an entertainer known for "witty" lyrics (see below) that celebrate drug use, drug-dealing, pimping, a gangster lifestyle, and glamorizing cheap wealth. He also has pled guilty to stabbing record executive Lance "Un" Riviera. And he has made fabulous amounts of money along the way.

Though Mr. Carter can afford to squeegee his Jaguar with prestige cuvées, he apparently couldn't pay the newstand price for a copy of The Economist. Here is what M. Rouzaud is actually quoted as saying:

BUBBLES AND BLING
Summer 2006 (The Economist)

Unwelcome attention

The reality is rather different, at least in the United States. Today, the most high-profile consumers of Cristal are rap artists, whose taste for swigging bubbly in clubs is less a sign of a refined palate than a passion for a “bling-bling” lifestyle that includes ten-carat diamond studs, chunky gold jewellery, pimped up Caddies and sensuous women. In his number one hit “Hard Knock Life”, Jay-Z raps, “Let’s sip the Cris and get pissy-pissy”. Cristal has been so visible at Mr Combs’s concerts that onlookers have wondered whether the venerable champagne house was sponsoring the event.

In fact, the attitude of the house of Roederer to the unexpected popularity of Cristal among rappers is considerably more circumspect. Frédéric Rouzaud, who took over from his father as managing-director of the winery in January, says that Roederer has observed its association with rap with “curiosity and serenity”. But he does not seem entirely serene. Asked if an association between Cristal and the bling lifestyle could actually hurt the brand, he replies:

“That’s a good question, but what can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.”

In fact M. Rouzaud never calls Mr. Carter's business "unwelcome attention". That is an extrapolation by The Economist. What M. Rouzaud has said is hardly damning or indecorous. There may be those who quibble with his business discretion, but what should he have said? Some innocuous nothing? There's plenty of that already. And clearly the question was asked because there is a glaring incongruity between the respective images of Louis Roederer, the champagne house, and notorious rappers like the felonious Mr. Carter. It seems to us that M. Rouzaud's wariness is well-founded and his business judgment sound. With production topping out at 600,000 bottles/annum, it is unlikely he will be hard pressed to find buyers to replace Mr. Carter.

Does it worry Frédéric, a quiet, thoughful man who says his greatest perk is his wife and two young children, that his most prominent customers are celebrities?

"They are only a small percentage of our total market. They get the most publicity but I admire their taste," he says wryly. "If they want to pay for Cristal, they can have it. Why not?

"We never advertise it, never give it away - not a single bottle - and we never discount it."

Ah, but Louis Roederer is a French enterprise. And responsible French publicists have come back with a spaghetti-punch counterpunch.

A house like Louis Roederer would not have existed since 1776 without being totally open and tolerant to all forms of culture and art, including the most recent musical and fashion styles which — like hiphop — keep us in touch with modernity.

That is quite a claim for a snob brand. Where is the haughty French brush-off when justified? We much prefer M. Rouzaud's measured candor.

Pave sadly boycotts French champagnes (though if you were to offer us a carelessly purchased Henriot Cuvee Des Enchanteleurs, well, good manners would prevail). But our reasons are very different reasons than Mr. Carter's imagined affront.

PFFT (What is this?): Rap slap ¼ | Oeno-phony 5 | Rayonnement français 3

Thanks for the e-mail and kind words of advice! If you're ever in Minneapolis, I'll buy you a drink. I can't afford Cristal, though. Sorry.