“O.J. like, ‘I’m Not Black, I’m O.J.’…Okay”: Collective Memory and the Narrative of America in Jay-Z’s “the Story of O.J.”

Abstract

This study's primary objective is to explore how Jay-Z's song, The Story of O.J. visually and verbally provides a narrative of race in the United States. This analysis examines the music video and lyrics of the artifact for a thorough inquiry of this primary objective. The artifact's use of images in conjunction with verbal messages visually and lyrically elicit strong emotional reactions from viewers. By applying a systematic narrative analysis, this essay examines Jay-Z's rhetoric in “The Story of O.J.” music video to investigate its rhetorical appeals. I argue that Jay-Z created an autobiographical narrative exploring American history from a Black perspective highlighting Black resilience while articulating the psychological dangers of reifying the myths of white supremacy structurally embedded in American culture.

KEYTERMS:

• Jay-Z
• public memory
• systematic narrative analysis
• the story of O.J.
• visual rhetoric

Acknowledgements

This manuscript was first written as part of SCOM 381, an advanced research class on rhetorical research methods/criticism taught by Dr. Matt Brigham, in the Fall of 2017 semester. The author also presented a version of this work at the 2019 National Communication Association Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

Notes

1 The term “American” is used as shorthand throughout this paper to refer to the United States.

2 “American public memory” is conceptually referring to the cultural narratives which uniquely inform and influence the public memory of US citizens. While acknowledging that not all US citizens think and act identically, there are undoubtedly elements of American public memory which affect the ways in which information is processed, interpreted and understood.