Decoded (35 page)
Authors: Jay-Z
Tags: #Rap & Hip Hop, #Rap musicians, #Rap musicians - United States, #Cultural Heritage, #Jay-Z, #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #United States, #Music, #Rich & Famous, #Biography & Autobiography, #Genres & Styles, #Composers & Musicians, #Biography
[
Jay-Z’s mom
]
/ Shawn Carter was born December 4th / Weighing in at 10 pounds 8 ounces / He was the last of my four children / The only one who didn’t give me any pain when I gave birth to him / And that’s how I knew that he was a special child
1
/
[
Jay-Z
] / They say “they never really miss you till you
dead or you gone”
2
/ So on that note I’m leaving after the song / So you ain’t gotta feel no way about Jay so long / At least let me tell you why I’m this way, Hold on / I was conceived by Gloria Carter and Adnis Reeves / Who made love under the sycamore tree / Which makes me /
A more sicker MC,
3
my momma would claim / At 10 pounds when I was born I didn’t give her no pain / Although through the years I gave her her fair share / I gave her her first real scare /
I made up for birth when I got here
4
/
She knows my purpose wasn’t purpose
5
/ I ain’t perfect I care / But I feel worthless cause my shirts wasn’t matchin my gear / Now I’m just scratchin the surface cause what’s buried under there /
Was a kid torn apart once his pop disappeared
6
/ I went to school got good grades could behave when I wanted / But I had demons deep inside that would raise when confronted / Hold on / [
Jay-Z’s mom
]
Shawn was a very shy child growing up / He was into sports / And a funny story is / At four he taught himself how to ride a bike / A two-wheeler at that / Isn’t that special? / But I noticed a change in him when me and my husband broke up
/ [
Jay-Z
] Now all the teachers couldn’t reach me / And my momma couldn’t beat me /
Hard enough to match the pain of my pop not seeing me,
7
SO /
With that disdain in my membrane
8
/ Got on my pimp game / Fuck the world my defense came / Then DeHaven introduced me to the game / Spanish José introduced me to cane / I’m a hustler now /
My gear is in
9
and I’m in the in crowd / And all the wavy light-skinned girls is lovin me now /
My self-esteem went through the roof man I got my swag
10
/ Got a Volvo from this girl when her man got bagged / Plus I hit my momma with cash from a show that I had /
Supposedly knowin nobody paid Jaz wack ass
11
/ I’m getting ahead of myself, by the way, I could rap / That came second to me moving this crack / Gimme a second I swear /
I will say about my rap career
/
Till ’96
12
came niggas I’m here / Goodbye / [
Jay-Z’s mom
]
Shawn used to be in the kitchen / Beating on the table and rapping / And um, until the wee hours of the morning / And then I bought him a boom box / And his sisters and brothers said that he would drive them nuts / But that was my way to keep him close to me and out of trouble /
[
Jay-Z
] Goodbye to the game all the spoils, the adrenaline rush /
Your blood boils you in a spot knowing cops could rush
13
/
And you in a drop you’re so easy to touch
14
/ No two days are alike /
Except the first and fifteenth pretty much
15
/ And “trust” is a word you seldom hear from us /
Hustlers we don’t sleep we rest one eye up
16
/ And a drought can define a man, when the well dries up /
You learn the worth of water without work you thirst till you die
17
/ YUP / And niggas get tied up for product /
And little brothers ring fingers get cut up
18
/ To show mothers they really got em / And this was the stress I live with till I decided / To try this rap shit for a livin / I pray I’m forgiven / For every bad decision I made /
Every sister I played
19
/ Cause I’m still paranoid to this day / And it’s nobody fault I made the decisions I made /
This is the life I chose or rather the life that chose me
20
/ If you can’t respect that your whole perspective is wack / Maybe you’ll love me when I fade to black / If you can’t respect that your whole perspective is wack / Maybe you’ll love me when I fade to black
1
/ FEATURING CEE-LO
By the Third Time They Were Singing Along. (1:10)
Now that all the smoke is gone / (Lighter) / And the battle’s finally won / (Gimme a lighter) / Victory (Lighters up) is finally ours / (Lighters up) / History so long so long / So long so long /
In search of Victory
2
she keeps eluding me
3
/ If only we could be together momentarily /
We can make love and make History
4
/ Why won’t you visit me? until she visit me / I’ll be stuck with her sister her name is Defeat / She gives me agony so much agony / She brings me so much pain so much misery / Like missing your last shot and falling to your knees /
As the crowd screams for the other team
5
/ I practice so hard for this moment Victory don’t leave / I know what this means I’m stuck in this routine /
Whole new different day same old thing
6
/ All I got is dreams nobody else can see /
Nobody else believes nobody else but me
7
/ Where are you Victory? I need you desperately / Not just for the moment to make History / Now that all the smoke is gone / (Lighters) / And the battle’s finally won / (Lighters) / Victory is finally ours / (Yeah) / History (yeah) so long so long / So long so long / So now I’m flirting with Death
hustling like a G
8
/ While Victory wasn’t watching took chances repeatedly / As a teenage boy before acne before
I got proactive
9
I couldn’t face she / I just threw on my hoodie and headed to the street / That’s where I met Success we’d live together shortly /
Now Success is like lust she’s good to the touch
10
/ She’s good for the moment but she’s never enough /
Everybody’s had her she’s nothing like V
11
/ But Success is all I got unfortunately / But I’m burning down the block hoppin’ in and out of V / But something tells me that there’s much more to see /
Before I get killed because I can’t get robbed
12
/
So before me Success and Death ménage
13
/ I gotta get lost I gotta find V / We gotta be together to make History / Now that all the smoke is gone / (Lighters. Up.) / And the battle’s finally won / (Lighters. Up.) / Victory is finally ours / (Lighters. Up.) / History so long so long / So long so long / Now Victory is mine it tastes so sweet / She’s my trophy wife
you’re coming with me
14
/ We’ll have a baby who
stutters repeatedly
15
/ We’ll name him History he’ll repeat after me / He’s my legacy son of my hard work /
Future of my past he’ll explain who I be
16
/ Rank me amongst the greats either one two or three / If I ain’t number one then I failed you Victory / Ain’t in it for the fame that dies within weeks / Ain’t in it for the money can’t take it when you leave / I wanna be remembered long after you grieve / Long after I’m gone long after I breathe /
I leave all I am in the hands of History
17
/
That’s my last will and testimony
18
/ This is much more than a song it’s a baby shower /
I’ve been waiting for this hour History
19
you ours / Now that all the smoke is gone / And the battle’s finally won / Victory is finally ours / History so long so long / So long so long
Evolution of My Style. (2:29)
I was over at L.A. Reid’s house in New York for a dinner party a couple of years ago when I first met Oprah Winfrey. I’ve met a lot of powerful people, but Oprah, as everyone knows, is in her own stratosphere. She’s also someone who’s been vocally skeptical about hip-hop for a long time because of the violence and rawness of a lot of the imagery and language, particularly the use of what she’d call the “n-word.” It’s ironic that she’s also been a champion of other kinds of writing—from poets like Maya Angelou to novelists like Toni Morrison—that also use violent and raw images and language (including the dreaded n-word!) to get at true emotions and experiences. But for her, rap was different, and dangerous, in a way that other forms of art weren’t.
Oprah and I ended up talking for a while at that dinner. Somehow, it came up that I’d read
The Seat of the Soul
, a book that really affected the way I think about life—the book is about karma and what it means to do the right thing and the power of intention. It turns out that the author, Gary Zukav, had been a guest on Oprah’s show on multiple occasions, and Oprah expressed surprise that I was also a fan of his work. She didn’t expect that of a rapper. I could tell that the way she saw me shifted in that moment; I wasn’t exactly who she thought I was.
Oprah and I have since gone on to become friendly acquaintances, after having only observed each other warily from a distance. But it was a fascinating moment to me. Rap, as I said at the beginning of the book, is at heart an art form that gave voice to a specific experience, but, like every art, is ultimately about the most common human experiences: joy, pain, fear, desire, uncertainty, hope, anger, love—love of crew, love of family, even romantic love (put on “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” some time and tell me rap can’t be romantic—or if you want to keep it street, put on Mary J. Blige and Method Man’s “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By”). Of course, in the end, it may not be the art form for you. Oprah, for instance, still can’t get past the n-word issue (or the
nigga
issue, with all apologies to Ms. Winfrey). I can respect her position. To her, it’s a matter of acknowledging the deep and painful history of the word. To me, it’s just a word, a word whose power is owned by the user and his or her intention. People give words power, so banning a word is futile, really. “Nigga” becomes “porch monkey” becomes “coon” and so on if that’s what’s in a person’s heart. The key is to change the person. And we change people through conversation, not through censorship. That’s why I want people to understand what the words we use—and the stories we tell—are really about.
And that’s why I wrote this book. I love writing rhymes. There’s probably nothing that gives me as much pleasure. There have been times in my life when I’ve tried to put it to the side—when I was a kid, so I could focus on hustling in the streets, and when I was an adult, so I could focus on hustling in the boardroom—but the words kept coming. They’re still coming and will probably never stop. That’s my story. But the story of the larger culture is a story of a million MCs all over the world who are looking out their windows or standing on street corners or riding in their cars through their cities or suburbs or small towns and inside of them the words are coming, too, the words they need to make sense of the world they see around them. The words are witty and blunt, abstract and linear, sober and fucked up. And when we decode that torrent of words—by which I mean really
listen
to them with our minds and hearts open—we can understand their world better. And ours, too. It’s the same world.
