Decoded Read online

  nts.14 Basquiat art, Charles the First, 1982, © 2010 The Estate of Jean- Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris/ARS, New York, photograph by Banque d’Images, ADAGP/Art Resource, N.Y.

  nts.15 Lorraine Hotel, © Joseph Louw/TIME & LIFE Images/Getty Images

  nts.16 Kurt Cobain, © Charles Peterson/Retna

  nts.17 cutlery, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.18 Buddha, © Rachel Bergman/Rodrigo Corral Design

  4.4 view from bridge, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  5.1 handcuffs, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  5.2 buildings with Empire State Building in background, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.19 Dizzy Gillespie, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design, illustration based on a photograph by Herb Ritts/Lime Foto

  nts.20 Atlas holding globe, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.21 golden handcuffs, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.22 Pimp C, © Nicolas Wagner/Corbis Outline

  nts.23 surveillance cameras, © Christoph Wilhelm/Taxi/Getty Images

  5.3 City Hall, New York City, © Sami Siva/REDUX; Lady Justice, Ian Nicholson/PA Wire/AP Images

  nts.24 record company folders, © Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.25 funeral home at 1 Troy Ave., © Laurie Carkeet/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.26 geometric shapes, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  7.1 sky, © Steve Satushek/Workbook Stock/Getty Images; Jay- Z concert, © OG/LUXURY MINDZ

  7.2 Madison Square Garden, © Bettmann/Corbis

  nts.27 Apollo Theater sign, © Rudy Sulgan/Corbis

  nts.28 Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, © Andrew D. Bernstein/National Basketball Association/Getty Images

  nts.29 Jay- Z, In My Lifetime album cover, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p3.1 Politics As Usual, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p3.2 American fl ag, © Willie Stark ONE/MILLION

  p3.4 Marcus Garvey, © Corbis

  p3.5 Marcus Garvey’s Golden Rule, © Renee Cox, 1993

  p3.6 arrest photo, © New York Daily News/Getty Images

  p3.7 video screen prior to Jay- Z’s performance on the pyramid stage during day two of the Glastonbury Festival, Somerset, PA Photos/Landov

  p3.8 kid on bike in Marcy, © Jonathan Mannion

  p3.9 The New York Times, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p3.10 Obama inauguration, © POOL/Reuters/Corbis

  8.1 White America, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  8.2 Rick Rubin, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design, illustration based on a photograph by Michael Muller/Contour by Getty Images

  8.3 Beastie Boys, © Laura Levine/Corbis

  8.4 Black Panthers, © New York Times Co./Getty Images

  nts.30 Louis Farrakhan, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design, illustration based on a photograph by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images; NYPD vehicle, © Jonathan Mannion

  nts.31 Vietnam, Larry Burrows © LB Collection

  9.1 Hurricane Katrina, © AP Photo/NASA

  9.2 soldier in Iraq, © Warrick Page/Getty Images

  nts.32 flag of India, © Steve Allen/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images

  nts.33 Osama Bin Laden, © AP Photo/File; Ronald Reagan, © Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

  nts.34 360 waves, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design

  9.3 Young and the Fearless, 2004 (boy with toy gun), © Arif Mahmood; Cautionary Tales, © Rodrigo Corral Design

  10.1 Black Panther pin, © David J. and Janice L. Frent Collection/Corbis

  10.2 Paul Robeson, © Jonathan Mannion

  nts.35 Black Gangster, by Donald Goines, Rodrigo Corral Design; lighter, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.36 Public Enemy logo

  nts.37 thumbprint and handprint, © Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.38 basketball hoop, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.39 hand scale, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design; dice, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  11.1 Katrina aerial shot, © Vincent Laforet/Pool/Reuters/Corbis; Funeral Parade album art, © Rodrigo Corral Design; funeral photograph, © Luca Tronci/Gallery Stock

  11.2 houses destroyed by Katrina, © David Howells/Corbis

  nts.40 Katrina survivors on roof, © David J. Phillip/Pool/Reuters/Corbis

  nts.41 black orchid, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.42 Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life album cover, Motown

  nts.43 black nationalist fl ag, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p4.1 Come and Get Me, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p4.2 University of Hip- Hop, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p4.3 Little Orphan Annie, © and ® 2010, Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

  p4.4 three card monte, © Simon Lee/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p4.5 Rakim, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design, illustration based on a photograph by Carol Friedman/Corbis

  p4.6 city buildings, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  p4.7 Notorious B.I.G., © Dana Lixenberg/Corbis Outline

  p4.8 The Voice In Your Head Is Right album art, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  12.1 Slick Rick, © Janette Beckman

  nts.44 man with shadow, © Rodrigo Corral Design

  nts.45 Pieta, © Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y.

  nts.46 puddle refl ection, © Margaret Murphy Photography

  nts.47 Scarface, Grant Delin/Corbis Outline

  nts.48 Al Pacino as Tony Montana, © Matt Buck/Rodrigo Corral Design, illustration based on a photograph by UNIVERSAL PICTURES/Album/Newscom

  13.1 Christ the Redeemer, © Bert Kohlgraf/Flickr/Getty Images; Instant Karma album artwork, © Rodrigo Corral Design; water, © Nadav Kander/Gallery Stock

  13.2 ocean, © Andreas Ren/Gallery Stock

  13.3 cross mural, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

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  nts.52 fallen angel, engraving by Gustave Doré, photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

  14.1 clouds, © Kim Ripley; Our Life album artwork, © Rodrigo Corral Design; buildings, © Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design

  14.2 Lauryn Hill, © Everett Collection/Rex USA

  nts.53 Maya Angelou, © Aaron Rapoport/Corbis

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  nts.55 CBS logo, ® and © 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved.

  nts.56 Jay- Z fans, © Ben Watts/Corbis Outline

  Notes on Lyrics

  PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

  Back to Lyrics

  1. This is Just Blaze’s voice, although he recorded it in a way that made it sound older, like a political speech from the Black Power era captured on a distant tape recorder.

  2. A simple double entendre of “Roc-A-Fella,” our company, which we call the Roc, and “rock,” common slang for crack because of the way the coke crystallizes when you cook it. I drop the “frying pan” into the next line to keep the comparison going. In the line after that I complete the connection between selling rock and selling the Roc, supplying the streets and supplying the music biz. Both take ruthlessness. In fact, the music industry is the fire to the crack game’s frying pan.

  3. The flier/flyer homonym also carries the momentum of the fire/supplier rhyme for one more line.

  4. The D.O.C.’s “No One Can Do It Better” was an early classic of the West Coast’s golden age.

  5. This line combines two separate pieces of slang—“check” means to collect, “cheddar” means money—to create a third piece of new slang—“a food inspector”—that only makes sense if you decode the first two phrases. “Check cheddar” is an alliteration that adds force to the image.

  6. My friend Strict uses the phrase “finish your breakfa
st” as a way of saying that you need to finish your job up strong.

  7. In these four lines I use five different variations on “do” and “dude” (plus “jewels,” whose hard “j” sounds almost like a “d”) to create a percussive rhythm within the beat.

  8. “Jay-Z sported a white T emblazoned with Che’s image, perhaps a case of game recognizing game …” —Elizabeth Mendez Berry, “The Last Hustle,” The Village Voice, November 25, 2003.

  9. Just to amplify the connection I’m trying to make between revolutionaries and hustlers, I invoke Malcolm’s famous “By Any Means Necessary” slogan.

  10. A drought in the game is when the supply or demand starts to dry up—and that’s when resourceful hustlers have to start getting creative. If that means getting violent, the “brainstorming” might just lead to someone getting wet, as in bloody, which is why you need to get your umbrella out, for protection. It’s a dramatic, violent image to convey the way desperation and hunger can explode.

  11. Here’s where life gets “complex.” I’m innocent because I didn’t invent the game; the game came to the hood via a bunch of people from the outside: the big drug suppliers, the gun merchants, the corrupt officials who, at best, let it happen, or, at worst, were actively involved. And we—the hustlers at the street level—definitely didn’t invent the poverty and hopelessness that drove a generation of desperate kids to start selling drugs. But then there’s a point where I’m not so innocent anymore. It’s when I “do it twice.” The second time is not out of desperation to survive or to resist the status quo, but out of greed for the spoils of the game.

  12. And it’s not just the material spoils that keep you going: You start getting addicted to the thrill of it, the adrenaline rush of going to see your connect in a small building in Harlem in a lobby that you’ve never been in, where you go in with a bag of money and come out with a bag of work. Or the feeling when you come around the corner back home and all eyes turn to you because everyone knows who you are—you represent something successful and free and dangerous, all at once. You have the best car, the best jewelry, the whole package. You taste a strange kind of fame. It’s as addictive as the shit you’re selling, and just as deadly.

  13. “The ghetto people knew I never left the ghetto in spirit.” —Malcolm X

  14. You can put a new shirt on your back, slide a fresh chain around your neck, and accumulate all the money and power in the world, but at the end of the day those are just layers. Money and power don’t change you, they just further expose your true self.

  15. Elizabeth Mendez Berry wrote in her essay: “Squint and you see a revolutionary. But open your eyes to the platinum chain around his neck: Jay-Z is a hustler.” No doubt. It’s a simple truth, but complex, too. Identity isn’t a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.

  AMERICAN DREAMIN’

  Back to Lyrics

  1. This is really where it begins, in a room with your feet up with your dudes. Too young to shave, dreaming about the big body Benzes you’re gonna push. Obviously for me, it’s in Marcy, but this could be anywhere—a basement in the midwest, a backyard in Cali, an Oldsmobile somewhere down South. The danger is that it’s just talk; then again, the danger is that it’s not. I believe you can speak things into existence.

  2. “Pitch” was slang for a hustle. Hustlers hoped to take a “mound” of work and turn it into a mountain of money. A mound is also the place you pitch from—which is why “we need a town.”

  3. This song samples Marvin Gaye’s “Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again,” a track that transports you to a blue-lit room in the seventies; you can practically smell the smoke from a joint coming out of the speakers.

  4. Our aim is the same as everyone, shooting for the American dream of success and wealth, but the target is a little different: Instead of trying to land in college or in a good job, I’m trying to get rich in the streets.

  5. The image of bags of coke the size of pillows connects with the image of a kid dreaming.

  6. In this verse I jump from it being about starving, a real and literal need, to desiring a 600-series Benz. It happens that quickly in the Life, too, in the real-life equivalent of two bars.

  7. Initially the decision to hustle is freestyled. These kids in the cipher, the ones with their feet up and the dreams of foreign cars, have absolutely no idea how to go into business, even one that surrounds them like the drug game. Do they know where to go to cop the work? No. Do they have a drug connect? No. They’re like anyone starting out in business; they need someone to give them the plan.

  8. A reference to Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”

  9. Tony La Russa is the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, often called the Cards.

  10. The “irony” refers back to the song’s wordplay and is itself a play on words: The “iron” in “ironies” also refers to the “bars” in the next line, the iron bars of a penitentiary.

  11. As with anything, you begin locally, in your own projects. The trip from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan once seemed as great a distance as going down South, or to a foreign country, with a foreign language. Repeat trips mean more money, familiarity with Papi, better relationships and credit. But credit is a vice, debt, a door-knocker.

  12. The repeated lines are just me creating an echo chamber. The well is a literal place to store and draw water. So I’m wishing my fellow hustlers the foresight to stash, to be resourceful, to see droughts and setbacks and attacks before they come, to have a plan from which to draw.

  13. The “insight” is a play on words—I’m not just wishing you insight, but sight in, the ability to see beyond what’s visible, to see even within your own soul.

  14. This series—about seeing the signs, seeing the scheming jackers, seeing inside the minds of the cops so you know when they’re coming—is meant to show how impossible it is for anyone to have the level of vision you’d need to make the dream of the hustler really come true. There are too many threats, too many hazards; even the smartest, most discerning hustler can’t anticipate it all. This song is like the blues; it’s about the inevitable tragedy of the hustler’s life, the inevitable piercing of the hustler’s dream. It’s about a wish that can’t come true. Can it?

  EARLY THIS MORNING

  Back to Lyrics

  1. The shoe box tells us from the first line that this is a low-level hustler.

  2. This song is about the true nature of the work. You get up early. You wear the same clothes.

  3. You obsess over making money. The work doesn’t have a social value. It’s not like you can motivate yourself by thinking about all the good you’re doing for the world. You start off doing it for all kinds of dumb reasons—because it’s cool, because you get to hang out with your friends all day—but the only thing you get out of it is money. And the money becomes your obsession.

  4. They came to us suffering for more of that shit. We relieved them and then cleaned up whatever money they had. This line is meant somewhat ironically in the song, but the truth is that drug addicts have a disease. It only takes a short time in the streets to realize that out-of-control addiction is a medical problem, not a form of recreational or criminal behavior. And the more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make “relieving” the suffering of the addicts.

  5. “Hundred dollars a week” is not a lot of money for a cat waking up early in the morning, working all day dealing drugs to “fiends.” The narrator here is still dreaming of big money, not making it. This is the reality of the low rungs of the drug game. But the ambition is still clear, not just in the scheming but in the work he’s doing to get what he wants, waking up early, throwing on yesterday’s clothes, and hitting the block hard.

  6. This is the best of times and worst of times, but it’s also the best and worst of who we are and what we can be. The narrator is caught up in a crazy system, one that treats addicts like
criminals and forces the young and ambitious into a life that might end with him shot up or locked up. To me, there’s something moving about the kid who goes to sleep dreaming about plans to make money, wakes up early with a Colgate smile, buries his work in the dirt, and fills his small pocket with crack rocks (pockets full of hope, I call them in “Renegade”). When he’s swarmed by fiends, lost souls driven by addiction, it’s hard to know if we should be happy for him because he’s unloading his work, getting closer to his dream, or if we should feel fucked up because we know the shit is so hopeless. I like leaving the listener without an easy answer.