disRESPECT. - The Sinking of Rihanna's Battleship - RESPECT.

On “Illest Motherfucker Alive” Jay-Z asks you to imagine how Beyonce, Kanye, himself, and RiRi, (aka Rihanna), will look at the Grammys. Whelp, the Grammys came and went, and like most serious hip-hop fans, we missed the show. Instead we vented our anger over breakfast the following morning, when we browsed the results on the Internet. Chris Brown for Best Rap Performance by a Group? Bruno Mars for anything? Katy Perry was there? These are just some of the thoughts that likely raced through the brains of devout hip-hoppers the day after the big show… the same devout hip-hoppers whom the producers of Battleship (yes, the film) purposely crossed.

Indeed that was a giant leap in our thesis… but so be it. Rihanna is a giant in the pop music game. And Battleship is a giant in the Hollywood film game. On the surface the two go hand-in-hand, just like Kanye and Kim Kardashian. The story here is that Rihanna is a respected artist in the hip-hop community. She has sung the hooks for some serious anthems (“Run This Town” “Love the Way You Lie” “All of the Lights”) and by association – she associates herself with Bey Bey, Ye, and Jay – she is expected to be a real artist. RiRi, to be Roc-ready, needs to be trill.

And that’s where the film, Battleship, comes into play. That shit tanked. Rotten Tomatoes lends the synopsis, “It [Battleship] may offer energetic escapism for less demanding filmgoers, but Battleship is too loud, poorly written, and formulaic to justify its expense — and a lot less fun than its source material.” All true. Yet the true crime in Battleship, what makes it hazardous for Rihanna, is its blatant propaganda for the U.S. Navy – how it is suggested that any misguided youth will find his way via enlistment. This kind of bureaucratic, from-the-top-down, implicit brainwashing defies the most prevailing instinct in all of hip-hop: to rebel. Battleship, above all else, is a film about submission.

Rick Rubin, the mind behind Def Jam and Run-DMC, would have drank his own piss before he let any of his acts jeopardize their artistic credibility over some Hollywood film. So why on Earth would the Roc-La-Familia not dissuade Rihanna from making her Hollywood acting debut in Battleship? The film is an obvious antithesis to everything hip-hop stands for – freedom, liberty, creativity. Hip-hop is what America claims to be, while Battleship is what it really is: Poorly-constructed fireworks aimed at your noggin.

And so, to answer Jay’s question, about how Ye, Beyonce, himself, and Rihanna would look at the Grammys, assuming we could go back in time, and actually watch the Grammys, we would say they look real good. Too good maybe. Good enough that Jay might overlook a small role in a Hollywood film and not see how it could affect Rihanna’s credibility. After watching Battleship, it’s hard not to see Rihanna as some sort of tool. After all, she’s back in the cesspool of capitalist shit – pungent enough to make anyone lose their appetite, even the most resilient of fans.