14 DAY TRIAL // On Friday, a remake for the classic 1985 hit “We Are the World” was released. Pioneered by Lionel Richie, who also co-wrote the song with Michael Jackson, the new single represents one of the biggest initiatives of the kind, in that it includes over 100 artists, from both music and film. Notably absent was Jay-Z but that’s only because he felt the remake should have never been done in the first place, as he tells MTV News.
It’s not the initiative itself that the rapper is not OK with, as he explains for the aforementioned media outlet, but rather the choice in terms of a single. From where he’s looking at things, Lionel Richie & Co. would have been better off if they had just come up with a new song instead of remaking what is undoubtedly a classic. A classic that, for Jay-Z, is literally untouchable.
“I have a interesting take on that,” Jay-Z tells MTV when asked about how he felt about the remake and why he wasn’t a part of it. “I know everybody is gonna take this wrong: ‘We Are the World,’ I love it, and I understand the point and think it’s great. But I think ‘We Are the World’ is like [Michael Jackson’s] ‘Thriller’ to me. I don’t ever wanna see it touched. I’m a fan of music. I know the plight and everything that’s going on in Haiti. I applaud the efforts: [Millions have been raised] through text [donations] to Haiti. So I appreciate the efforts and everything, but ‘We are the World’ is [musically] untouchable like ‘Thriller’ is untouchable. Some things are just untouchable. It was a valiant effort, but for me, it’s gonna be untouchable,” Jay-Z explains.
A better idea would have been to write an entirely new song for the campaign, he goes on to say. “I would have loved that idea better. As everyone knows, I have tremendous respect for Quincy Jones. Of course, I think he’s genius, as everyone else does. [But] I think it’s time for us to make a new [song]. I tried to do that with ‘Stranded,’ [the song Jay, Rihanna and U2’s Bono and the Edge premiered at the Hope for Haiti Now telethon]. I didn’t try to make ‘We Are the World,’ but I tried to make our take on how we felt,” the rapper adds.
Jay-Z is not the only one to think the world would have been better off musically without the “We Are the World” remake, as critics too are rushing to rip it apart. When you have such heavy names on the original, the temptation to compare between them and their replacements on the second version is almost too big to ignore and, clearly, the latter fall short. Such is the case of Lil Wayne of whom the New York Times says, without any trace of delicacy, that Auto-Tune does not make for Dylan’s characteristic “wayward phrasing” and concludes, “Lil Wayne, you’re no Bob Dylan.”