Lèse-majesté

Lèse-majesté /ˌliːz ˈmædʒᵻsti/ (French: lèse-majesté [lɛz maʒɛste]; Law French, from the Latin laesa maiestas, "injured majesty"; in English, also lese-majesty, lese majesty or leze majesty) is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.

This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman Republic of Ancient Rome. In the Dominate, or Late Empire period the emperors eliminated the Republican trappings of their predecessors and began to identify the state with their person. Although legally the princeps civitatis (his official title, meaning, roughly, 'first citizen') could never become a sovereign because the republic was never officially abolished, emperors were deified as divus, first posthumously but by the Dominate period while reigning. Deified emperors enjoyed the same legal protection that was accorded to the divinities of the state cult; by the time it was replaced by Christianity, what was in all but name a monarchical tradition had already become well-established.

Lese Majesty

Lese Majesty is the second studio album by American hip hop duo Shabazz Palaces, released on July 29, 2014. The album features contributions from THEESatisfaction’s Catherine Harris-White, Erik Blood and Thadillac. The album was produced by Shabazz Palaces and mixed by Blood at Protect and Exalt Labs in Seattle.

Background

In an interview with Hypetrak in February 2013, Palaceer Lazaro announced he and Maraire were working on a second album. Of the record’s sound, he said “I don’t know. I doubt that it will sound much like it. It will probably sound… I don’t know. We’ve left that. That [last album] is kind of far behind us now. There will be some similarities I guess, because we are who we are. Other than that, it’s not gonna sound much like it at all.”

The album was first premiered at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center Laser Dome in April 2014.

Reception

Lese Majesty has received acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 81, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 36 reviews.