Pop royalty reframed wealth as revolutionary while denouncing capitalist labels.

Evidence

Beyoncé’s and her husband Jay-Z’s self-positioning as pop royalty reframed the entire narrative of culture into a story of their destiny. Their 2021 Tiffany & Co. advertising campaign placed them in front of a baby-blue Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, which Tiffany’s dubiously claimed was an homage to its blue box. Jay-Z, from the comfort of Maybachs and opulent mansions, positioned his wealth as revolutionary while complaining that any labeling of him as a “capitalist” was akin to a racial epithet. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 638

Categorization

• XREF: Exemplifies the omnivore monoculture’s collapse of the sellout category — luxury and rebellion merge in one image. — connects to: Pop art’s ironic critique was inverted and co-opted by the market. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 865