The Jay Z/Marina Abramovic beef of 2015, which threatened to leave thousands of hip hop and performance art fans dead or wounded on the streets of New York, may be coming to a close. If it does, the truce will come in the manner of all great peace treaties between two ancient and terrible powers: with a third party apologizing for shoddy bookkeeping and poor communication.
As survivors well know, the beef exploded earlier this week, when Abramovic lashed out at the rapper for failing to compensate her for her assistance in putting together an art project to promote his album Magna Carta Holy Grail. Jay Z fired back by dropping the receipt for his donation to the Maria Abramovic Institute on the internet, not unlike a talented young guest rapper dropping a verse on a hot new track, or a talented young Applebee’s server dropping a receipt on a table. In the wake of these fired shots, a heavy tension settled on the rap/art world, with young hip-hop slingers preparing their deadliest verses while the artists hid in their bunkers, sharpening pieces of paper with the word “knife” printed on them in big bold letters.
But now that fog of war has lifted, as the Marina Abramovic Institute has acknowledged that, oh yeah, they did have a donation on file from Shawn “JAY Z” Carter after all, and had simply neglected to inform Ms. Abramovic that it had been received. The Institute went on to apologize to both Shawn “JAY Z” Carter, as well as Abramovic herself, and promised that it has taken “all appropriate actions to reconcile the matter,” presumably in the form of Abramovic sternly dressing herself down in the mirror for six hours, filming it, and calling it art.