Angela Natividad's Live & Uncensored!

29 June 2006

Jay-Z Gets Butthurt About Cristal

Funny news snippet of the day:

The tempest in a champagne flute kicked off when Frederic Rouzaud, managing director of Cristal parent Louis Roederer, told The Economist that he viewed his brand's ubiquity in hip-hop lyrics and videos -- such as Jay-Z's own line "let's sip the Cris and get pissy-pissy" -- with a combination of "curiosity and serenity."*

I don't know how you can write a sentence like that with a straight face. I had to read it at least six times and I still can't stop laughing.

If you're curious about how Jay-Z took this totally nebulous statement, he was pissed, infusing the byte with perhaps more clarity than the situation called for: "I view his comments as racist and will no longer support any of his products."

AdRants puts it well when it muses, "Jay-Z called Cristal's almost-compliment about him mentioning the brand in his lyrics racist. What now, smiling at someone the wrong way is racist?"

In other news, Cristal falls from spot 7 to spot 8 as hip-hop's swig of choice according to National Brandstand, which tracks how often brands get name-dropped in popular tracks.

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*Jeremy Mullman, "Def Jam President Jay-Z Angered by Liquor Marketer's Comments," AdAge, June, 27, 2006

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