Sweet! Now I don't have to worry about going broke buying that bottle of Crissy!

"My motto, stack rocks like Colorado/Auto off the champagne, Cristal's by the bottle."

Oh really Jay-Z?



"the [Cristal] company viewed the affection for his company's champagne from rappers and their fans with "curiosity and serenity.""

...THE KICKER'S COMING UP...

"I'm sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business."


So basically they're trying to find a nice way to say, "We don't know why these nikkas love it so much, we wish they would have chose another company like Dom or Krug b/c they're low-class citizens in the champagne society".

Is it just me or does anyone else see the irony in the fact that Jay-Z is boycotting Cristal?

For one, he's one of the main rappers who first introduced the world to the drink and (though not forcefully) had many people feeling as if they had to drink this particular type of champagne to be in the upper echelon of coolness. This is also the man who said he was drinking Cristal WAYYY back when other people thought it was beer! Braggadocio at it's best. Take a trip to http://images.google.com and do a search for "cristal". You may find it ironically hilarious what guy shows up in the first page results.

So how ironic is it for the man who helped place this product (in the mind of the hip-hop consumer) as THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS champagne out there, to be boycotting the product now?

A couple questions:

1. Did we all think that the makers of this champagne really envisioned it becoming a staple in hip-hop culture?

2. Did we all think that Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren (and other companies) really envisioned us embracing their product(s) the way we did and in some cases, still do?

Personally, I think it's good that Jay is taking this stand. Though it may not seem that way from this post, I definitely think it's a good thing. More importantly though, this is like another shining example of why we as black folks need to support one-another and buy one-another's products. Half the stuff we think is cool and spend all our money on, the people who make these products may not even want us buying it.

In addition to this being an example of why we should support one-another, I also think it's an opportunity for some of the most popular rappers to come together and show some solidarity in standing up for a good cause. Trust me, if all the big time rappers start shytting on Cristal, there will be a lot of folks who'll erase the product from their hip-hop vocab and eventually most hip-hoppers will ignore the product altogether.

I have alot of other stuff I could rant about in regard to this whole Cristal issue, but I'll save that for some random conversation.

(UPDATE: You can find another good opinionated article on this at dallaspenn.com)