Violence and Misogyny in Rap

Hi, it's Terry Gross back with another fresh air bonus episode for plus supporters like you . The rapper Jay Z, who also co founded the entertainment company Rock Nation, hasn't officially toured since twenty eighteen, but he's performing three concerts at Yankee Stadium in July , celebrating two big anniversaries , thirty years of his debut album Reasonable Doubt and twenty five years of The Blueprint . They were both huge critical and commercial successes. So today we're featuring the interview I recorded with J E in twenty ten after the publication of his memoir Decoded. We talked about the projects where he grew up , his first efforts as an entrepreneur which was dealing crack when he was a teenager, the inspirations behind some of his most popular songs, why male rappers often grab their crotches while performing, and one of the first rhymes he remembers writing. Let's go back to twenty ten and take it from the top . This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross . My guest Jay Z has been incredibly successful as a rapper and an entrepreneur , which is pretty amazing since he could easily have been in prison or dead. He was born in nineteen sixty nine and grew up in a housing project , watch crack destroy his neighborhood, but he sold it on the street before he found his new life in the recording studio and on stage. In his new book Decoded, JZ offers his story as an example of the story of his generation , explaining the tough choices they faced at a violent and chaotic time. Decoded also tells the stories behind thirty six of J Z's songs. He holds the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard two hundred . His recording with Alicia Keys Empire State of Mind from his two thousand nine album Blueprint three has become something of a New York anthem. Jay Z co founded the label Rockefeller Records, as well as the clothing company Rock Aware. He's the former president of DefJam Records. He's a part owner of the New Jersey's NBA team the Nets, and co owns the sports bar the four thousand forty Club. Let's start with one of his signature songs, Izo HOVA, produced by Kanye West from Jay Z's two thousand one album The Blueprint . Ladies and gentlemen, put our hands together for this please . Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the eighth A Onep ofonder the World , the flower of the century . Oh, it's timeless . Ho thanks for coming out the light . You could have been anywhere in the world , but you're here with me. I appreciate that H to the Is o, B to the Is A. W. Shizu Miniz to dribble down in V eight. It was herbing them in a home with the turbines. Got it dirt cheap for them. Plus if they were short with cheese, I would work with them. More than we got rid of that dirt for them. Wasn't born hussels. I was birthing them. H to the Izo, V to the Is A. Plus eat my knee, heat my arms so breezy, can't leave rap alone the game needs me. Haters want me clap the chrome. It ain't easy. Cops want to knock me. D ain't want to box me yet, but somehow I beat them charges like Rocky. Hate should the Is O B to the Is not guilty. He who does not feel me is not real to me. Therefore he doesn't exist so poof that moves on a H to the Is O B to is saying. Which is who my nazu used to drive down and be a H to the is own. Peter is saying. That's the anthem. Get your damn hands up. H to the isol ation. JZ, welcome to Fresh Air. It's great to have you on our show. So let me just start let me just start with a track that we heard which samples the Jackson Five's I want you back . Tell me what that song meant to you before you used it in Izo . Well , I had I grew up in a Marci Project in Brooklyn and my mom and Pop had an extensive record collection. So Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all those sounds and souls of Motown, et cetera, et cetera , filled the house. So I was very familiar with the song when Kanye bought me the sample . It was just such an interesting and fresh take on it that I immediately was drawn to it. Now, would you mind if I asked you about Izo, which I think is one of your nicknames? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like an abbreviation H to the Izo. Like Vehovah is a spelling and it was like this I guess a it for'sm of pig Latin 's language that we use like a slang H to the Is O V to the Isa. It's basically spelling hover . Which is short for JHOVA, which is a nickname that you know, they, gave me because it was like one time I was recording in the studio and I wasn't writing and one of my friends was like, man, this is like, how are you doing that, man? God must really love you. It's like in a religious experience, man and then he was like Jehovah and then you know it would start out as a joke and then it just stuck. Okay . As most nicknames do, right? Right No and talking about sampling, I'm reminded of something you say in the book that I thought was really interesting. You know, you talk about your parents having a big record collection. Your father left when you were very young, I think, when you were nine . And you say that most of your friends' fathers had left. You say our fathers were gone usually, because they just bounced , but we took their old records and used them to build something fresh It's really interesting that one of the things that your father leaves behind that you can use is his rapid . Yeah, I guess there's a bright side to everything . Yeah, well looking at it . So what were your first rhymes like you? Like you got your first broombox when you were nine. Your mother gave it to you, you say because she thought would help keep you out of trouble . Yeah. Yeah, just so you know, if I was focusing on the music, you know, I wouldn't be , you know, running the streets all while so she tried to encourage me to pursue my dreams in music early on . And my first rhymes were pretty much, you know, very boastful and you know, academic, but they were kind of advanced for a young kid. Like I put a piece of one of them and it was like, I'm the king of hip hop, the renewed like the reboot, the key in the lock with words so provocative as long as I live . And I look back on that rhyme now. I'm like, man, it's pretty prophetic. So you were about nine when you wrote that ? Yeah, well, yeah, between nine and eleven. Those are my first rhymes. Okay, so provocative is a pretty big word for a kid that age. You write how you started reading the dictionary like looking for cool words to use. Did you find that word in the dictionary or did you already know? Yeah . Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found that in the dictionary. I had a sixth grade teac her Ms. Lauden that was pivotal to my hunger for wanting to know the English language and, you know, discover these words. And you know, it was a tool and the music that and the poetry that I chose to pursue. Would you describe the Marcy projects in Bedford Staeverson where you grew up in Brooklyn ? Yeah, you have these three columns of buildings with four people on each floor , six floors , you know, so you have people to the left of you, right of you, top on top and on the bottom of you . It's a very intense and stressful situation. Everyone's going through different things and in between all that stress and anchs and having to deal with one another in such close proximity, there's so much and there was playing in the Johnny Pump and there was the ice cream man who coming around and there was all these games that we played and then it would turn suddenly it's just violent and there would be shootings at twelve in the afternoon on any given day . So it was just weird mix of emotions . You know, one day your best friend could be killed . The day before you could be celebrating him getting a brand new bike. It's just extreme highs and lows. How old were you when Krack came to the neighborhood ? Um , it was about eighty five so I had to be a little earlier than that. So maybe about twelve, thirteen years old . And how did that change the projects ? Well, I think it would have ch whatang ed most was, you know, they have a saying it takes a village to raise a child. It changed the authority figure because , you know, with crack cocaine, it was done so openly and the people who were addicted to it , the fiends had very little self respect for their self. It was so highly addictive that they didn't care how they obtained it and they carried that out in front of children who were dealing at the time. So the relationship of that respect of , you know, I have the respect my elders and you know, uncle Tyrone's coming wasn't really your uncle, but he was the uncle for the neighborhood and you know that dynamic shift and it had broke forever and it just changed everything from that point on. And it changed everything for you because and you read about this in the book and you know you've rapped about it too. You ended up being a hustler, you ended up selling crack and helping your mother as a single mother the family Did she know that's how you were making the money I'm sure she suspected, you know, as much because it was so prevalent what happened was it was either you were using it or selling it. And that was pretty much the two options. I know there was, you know, that's a very blanket statement. I know it was a very small percentage that, you know, had nothing to do with drugs maybe in their household, but, you know, the brother , the sister, somebody, the uncle, the aunt, it was just, it was so prevalent. You know, you could smell it in the hallways. You could see crack valves in the elevator on the curb, you know, where the water flows , crack valves floating up and down like a river or something . It was just everywhere. So you'd seen how it really damaged crack . And then when you started selling it, did you ever think, I'm contributing to that damage ? Not till later on, you know, at fourteen, fifteen years old, you know, you're thinking about to be honest with you, you're thinking about sneakers or, you're thinking about some sort of relief from all the pain you're feeling. You're thinking about buying some food for the house. You're thinking about paying an extra light bill . So at that young age, you're not thinking about the destruction that you're causing your own community . I want to play another track here. And I want to play december fourth because it's so autobiographical and about the period of your life that we're talking about, and also because your mother's featured on it. Yeah. Well, actually hear her voice. Yeah. Yeah. Did you say you tricked her? Yeah, it was her birthday. It was actually her birthday. December fourth is my birthday which is the title of the song. And it was her birthday september seventeenth and I told her to meet me down at the studio that we were going to go to lunch and for her birthday and she came down to the studio and I just bought the track up and I was like, I just want you to talk on it because I knew if I told her she'd get really nervous. So I just I brought it down to the studio and I just bought the track up and I was like, I need you to talk on this. And she's like, what you want me to say and you know, the rest is history. Where'd you tell her when she said, What do you want me to say? I just tell those stories that you told about me about riding a bike when I was four and you know, those sort of things. And she went in there and you know, we couldn't get off the mic after a minute. She just kept talking . Okay So here's Jay Z's december fourth from the Black album and also featuring his mother. Sean Carter was born december fourth , weighing in at ten pounds, eight 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 charge . Happy , what's wrong? You click, you lost your miss with , is it something that happened again? Hait, you lost your miss with you . Just say they never really missed you till you dad are you gone so on that note I'm leaving after the song. So you ain't gotta feel no way about you so long, but at least let me tell you why I'm this way. Hold on. Who was conceived by Gloria Carter and Madness Reeds who made love under the sickama tree, which makes me a more sicker MC and my mama would clean at ten towns when I was born. I didn't give her no pain. So through the years I gave her her fish year. I gave her her first real scare. I made it for birth when I got here. She knows my purpose wasn't purpose. I ain't perfect. I can't but I'm for purpose because my shirt wasn't matching my kid. I'm scratching the surface 'cause it was buried under there was a kid torn apart, wasn't top disappearing. I went to school , got good drinks, cookie hate when I wanted, but I had gamers deep inside that when Race was confronted. Hold on. Sean was a very shy child growing up. That's Jay Z's december fourth, and my guest is JZay. He has a new book called Decoded . So this track we just heard is from the black album. So I've got to ask you how you feel about the gray album, which is the mashup that Danger Mouse did of your black album and the Beatles White album without any copyright permission . So how do you feel about it musically and how do you feel about the fact that he did it? I think it was a really strong album I championed any form of creativity and that was a genius idea to do. And it sparked so many others like it. There are other ones that, you know, it's really good. There are other ones that because of the blueprint that was set by him that I think are a little better , but you know, him being the first and having idea, I thought it was genius. Did you feel ripped off by the fact that he used your music on it without paying for it or did you think it doesn't matter it's really good art? No, I was actually honored that someone took the time to mash those records up with Beatles records. I was honored to be on , you know, quote unquote, the same song with the Beatles. Let's talk about the period of your life when you were selling crack. How did how did you start doing that ? Well, yes, it wasn't very difficult. It was like no job interview resume Yeah I knew a friend who knew a friend and you know, he made an introduction and we had a conversation almost like a job interview and it was almost these rules of how to do it and how not to get high on your own supply and how to be a man of principle and of your word and dealing with people and it was like this advice as if it was a fortune five hundred job , you know, except it was, you know, crack cocaine. And did you take that Scarface advice of don't get Did not get high on your own supply? Yeah, that strangely enough, that movie about, you know, all this violence in Gaul was like one of the biggest things to impact our generation. You know, not everyone listened It's a very difficult thing to do. So did you listen to that? Yeah, yeah, I did. Yes. So you write about some of the generational differences at this time when a lot of the teenagers were selling crack and a lot of the adults were addicted. And you say one of the differences , generational differences was the way you dressed baggy jeans and puffy coats to stash the crack and the weapons and construction boots to survive cold winter nights working in the streets. Now I have to say, I've never thought of those baggy pants and puffy coats as ways to stash drugs and weapons. Yeah, it's like that's what the code is pretty much about. It breaks down some of the things that you know, the origins of things and how they arrive, especially with the songs , of course , but also with our generation . Those things now that seem like merely fashion, you know, were purposeful at one time or another. I have to say some of those baggy jeans are so loose around the waist like they fall down to the middle of your behind and I think if you had a weapon in there they'd definitely drop to the floor the weapon would just like drag them right down . So well, you know, if you had a big enough weapon, whatever. So you describe in the book how when you first started writing rhymes, you had a notebook . But when you were hustling on the street, you weren't carrying your notebook with you. If a rhyme came to you that you wanted to remember, what would you do? You'd go to the store, tell the story how you'd go to the store to Yeah, what happened was I wrote so much in this book. I would sit at my table for hours and hours to my mother made me go to bed and it was like this obsession with words and with writing . And as I got further away from that notebook, you know, as I was on the street and these ideas would come, I would run into the corner store the Bodega and grab like a paper bag or just buy juice, anything just to get a paper bag and then I'd write the words on a paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back and then I would transfer them into the notebook and as I got further and further away from home and from the noteb , I had to memorize these rhymes longer and longer and longer. And like with any exercise, you know, once you train your brain to do that, it becomes a natural occurrence. So, you know, by the time I got to recall my first album, which was I was twenty six , I didn't need pen or paper. My memory had been trained, you know, just to listen to a song, think of the words, and then just lay on the tape . And what about now, do you write down rhymes when they come to you or I haven't since my first album? And your memory's as good now as it was then ? Yeah , yeah . I've lost plenty material. It's not it's not the best way. I wouldn't advise it to I wouldn't advise it to anyone. I've lost a couple albums worth of great material. Well, I thought they were great when I couldn't remember them, you know ? To think about how , you know, when you can't remember a word and it drives you crazy and like, man, I got to think about this. You know, it's the it's the so imagine , you know, forgetting an entire rhyme and having to sit there and like , what? I said I was the greatest of something . So what was the turning point in your life that got you out of hustling and into the recording studio? It was like events that would happen over the years . You know, I went to a guy named Clark Hint, by the name of Clark Hint. I made a couple demos with him and then I would leave back into the streets . You know, my cousin stopped speaking to me, thought I was wasting my talent and I was like one foot in and one foot out. I always had in the back of my mind that I would be back in the streets for some reason and I guess I didn't have one hundred percent belief in what I was doing . Then finally I just said , man, I'm just going to give this music a try. I'm going to give it a hundred percent and just forget everything that I'm doing. You know, and here we are . So how much money had you been making on the street when you decided to try music? Well, I don't know if you really have a concrete number of how much money you were making. Sometimes it was really good and it was fantastic. I mean, I did pretty well , which made it more difficult for me because at the time people in the street were making more than rappers, you know, not until the big deals of MasterPe and puff deal with bad boy with Arrist Records where people get really big deals. So for the most part, people in the street were making more than rappers. So for me, I dressed as a book as well. There's a song called Can't Knock the Hustle. And it sounds like I'm saying you can't knock my hustle. But what who I was talking to was the guys on the street because rap was my hustle and like at the time street the stre ets was my job. So when I was telling people, yeah, I want to be a rapper. I want to wanna do this. They were like, man, why do you want to be a rapper? Those guys get taken advantage of everybody takes their money. You know, we go to parties and we pull up in Mercedes and Lexus and they pull up in turtle tops with sixteen people in them. Why do you want to do that? And I was like, man, I just really I couldn't really explain to them how much I loved it . So I would just say, let me just try it. I just want to see what it's about. Let's talk about another one of your tracks. I want to play hard knock life , which really surprised me when I first heard it because you sample the song Hard Knock Life from the Broadway show Annie, which I thought was a real surprise , surprising choice. To say the least for you, yes, to say the least. So how did you decide to use that ? Well, what happened was sister's name is Andrea Carter and we call her Annie for short . So when the TV version of the play , you know, it came on and it was like this story called Annie. I was immediately drawn to it, of course, is my sister's name. Like, what is this about? So I watched it and I was, you know, I was immediately drawn to that story and you know, those words instead of treated, we get tricked, instead of kisses, we get kicked , it immediately resonated with me . So fast forward I'm on the puff daddy tour and I'm about to leave stage and a DJ by the name of K Kitapri plays this track, no rap on it, just instrumental. You know, it stopped me in my tracks. It immediately brought me back to my childhood and that feeling . And I knew right then and there that I had to make that record and that people would relate to the struggle in it and the aspiration in it as well . So let's hear the song and then we'll talk a little more about it . So this is Hard Knock Life Ghetto Anthem by Jay Z . Take the bassline out . Uh huh . Show . Really bumped up. From standing on the corners pop in to driving some of the hottest cars New Yorkers ever seen for dropping some of the hottest versus rappers ever heard for the dope spot with sm theoke block you never heard the scene. You know me well for nightmares up a lonely cell. My only hell was since when ya know me that fell . No , we all might with the rubber grits for shots. And if you're with me, my mum, you're terrible and whatnot I'm from the school of the hard knives. We must not let outsiders buy your made our blocks and my block the stick of the world a split at fifty fifty. Uh huh. Let's take the dough and stay real chicky. Uh huh. I sip the chris and get pissy, pissy, flow infinitely like the memory of my chicky. Baby. You know what's hell when I come through the life and times of Sean Carter in it violume two . That's Hard Knock Life Ghetto Anthem by my guest Jay Z, who has a new book called Decode it . So you tell a great story in the book about how you got the rights to use that song to use the song from Annie, Hard Knock Life. You tell the story ? Yeah . Well, man, we got the rights already, so it was a bit late. So I exaggerated a touch . You know, in typical when you have declare a song, you have to send it a sample song. You send it to the original writers and they give grant you permission and you pay a fee for that permission. You know, with some writers, their art is for them very important . So it has to be the right sort of attitude and the right take and the emotion on the record has to fit you know what was originally intended. So we're having difficulties cleaning a sample and I wrote a letter about how much it meant to me, you know, what it meant to me growing up and how I went to like a Broadway play, which was a exaggeration. I saw it on TV and , you know, we got the rights. Let me stop because in the book, you say that you told a big lie. In the book, you said that you made up that you entered an essay contest and in the essay you wrote about the importance of seeing Annie on Broadway, which you'd never seen on Broadway in Bag. And you know, all that it meant to you when you saw it on Broadway, I think you said you like won the essay contest. And so I didn't want you to put the whole thing out there. I was trying to, you know, I couldn't. So in other words, you lied a little bit in order to get the rights. Yeah, it was it was, you know, it was a bad lie for good reason . Well, working well for everybody Have you ever met Charles Strauss who wrote the music for the song ? No, but someone just reached out like the other day and said that he wants to speak with me, so I'm gonna reach out to him. I mean, just the other day as well, so which is really cool. I was in a house trying to I went looking at a house on the upper east side and I saw this plaque on the wall and I'm like, wait a minute, that's my plaque . And it was , I guess it was his house . This is a couple years back. I have to share that with him. Oh, oh, you mean your grammy ? Is that your shirt? No, the plaque for the record you know the gold record plaque. The golden record plaque. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It was like a lot of times platinums though. But yeah, that 's funny. That's right. Well, I interviewed him a few years ago. You want to hear what he had to say about Amanda. Yes, please. Yeah, okay, I mean, about Hard Knock Life.. Okay So this is Charles Strauss, who wrote the music for Annie , talking about Jay Z's version of Hard Knock Life . And here's what he had to say about it. He said something in the liner notes that it was gritty. He said it was gritty and he felt that that was the way black people felt in the ghetto. And the fact is when we were working on Annie, it was the first song that I had written the music for . And I wanted that song to be gritty. I didn't want it to be a fake. I wanted it to these desperate times and these maltreated girls, et cetera, et cetera. So when he picked up on that , I was very proud of myself for that reason all . Okay, so he liked absolutely. No, parts of the street life that you'd left behind when you stopped hustling and started making music followed you and followed some of the people you knew, some of the other famous rappers into the music world. I'm thinking like Biggie gets killed , Tupac gets shot . You were accused of stabbing someone. And you could tell us or not tell us what actually happened with that. But I think it's just kind of tragic that that kind of violence kind of followed into the music world. And I guess I'd be interested in what your take on that is. Yeah, I kind of discussed that in the book as well. Like when you come into inside the music business and you're coming from these rough neighborhoods, you know, as soon as you sign a record deal, it's not like freeze tag. Like everything stops like no, I'm a rapper now. You know, you still have friends, you still have old problems that you've been through . So when people see you now and just because you signed the contract , you know, it's not like they're going to stop . It's just the reality. You're still a human being. You have to either know how to deal with that situation or it deals with you. And you know, fortunately for me, I was pretty much my own boss. So I didn't have much weight to carry. Of course I had the weight of people that associate my I associated myself with and people that I'm around in , you know, that night. That's what happened. Like a big fight and then you got realized that you're famous now. So it was a big fight that got out of hand. I've had a hundred of those and you know, I've never went to the front page of the paper. Now that I've signed this contract, now it's on the news all day and I have to turn myself in. And I'm really like, man, I had a lot of these fights. You know, the guy who got the record executive , you know, they I wasn't a record executive. Here it was, I sold my company sold, you know, a million records and I don't know what his company , I don't know if he sold the record at that time, but he was a record executive. Just think about how they frame it. I'm not just blaming the media. I take full responsibility in the fight, but I'm just talking about this sense how it was sensationalized that you use a record you stabbed a record executive when you're ready to haven't done anything yet. And you said and you thought that he had bootlagged your album and put it out before the release date. So you were exactly and he was a friend of mine by the way was just, you know, a friend . We had a tussu. He went home. Did you actually stab him ? Well , it was a fight that got out of the hand. Let's just say that. Okay , right. And he He , you know, he went home without he didn't take a nap. They didn't give him aspirin, anything. He went home the same night. You know, they sensationalized it like he was in a hospital in critical or something . So you turned yourself in on that one. Yeah . And pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor just to finish the story. Do I have that right ? Yes. Yeah . Okay . So but anyway, so you do think it's kind of tragic but it's very tragic. But if you if you put it in context , you can see why and how some of these things ? Because if you go through these neighborhoods and places that we grew up in, it's happening. You know, it's not reported on the news . You know, for every two big smaller Tupac, there's a million other kids that lose their lives to senseless violence in the hood all the time and it's not on TV . These two guys come from the same neighborhood where all this stuff is happening and it's happening today , continues to happen that you know everyone wants to ignore it unless it's a famous person and it's not right. Every life is valuable . No, I just have to ask you, I'm sure you've been asked this a lot, but this is the bitch and hoe question . It just always seemed to me that so much about rap music about men's rap music is about demanding respect , but not giving a whole lot to women in the lyrics . And I'd be interested in your take on that . A lot of these albums are made when artists are pretty young, seventeen, eighteen years old. So they've never really had any real relationships . And if you come, you know, in the neighborhoods we're in, you know, we have low self esteem ourself, you know, and then the women and well, the girls , they have low self est eem as well . So these are all dysfunctional relationships at a very young age . And the poet is really just pretty much saying his take on how his dealings with girls at that time . He's not in really stable relationships. He's on the road . He's seeing girls who like him because he makes music. They have spent one night together , he gets a phone number and he leaves to the next town and does the same thing, you know, over again. Now, you're talking about yourself here too when you were younger? Yeah , yeah, as well, yes. So do you feel like you got over that eventually that you mat ured out of that ? Of course , yeah . And were there times when you continued to write in the character of that younger person I mean, a song on my first alb um was ain't no ain't no I guess y'all could bleep that out of it. You know, and it was like this careless relationship and then I went to Big Pimpin in ' ninety nine and on that same album was a song called Song Crowd and Song Crowd became Barney and Clyde on two thousand four , which became Venus versus Mars on my last album. So there's a steady growth in the conversations that's being had as it pertains to women as I grew . Can I ask you a question you might find weird but since part of your goal in the book is to kind of explain your generation and explain the music to people? You know how a lot of hip hop artists when they're on stage, they kind of like grab their crotch ? Yeah, I have a great explanation for that. Yeah, like, how did that start? Like who started that and why is that? Well , a lot of times in hip hop , like in rock and roll, you have bands who tour the world. They get in vans and they tour the world and they do rinky dink clubs and they get bottles thrown at them and you know, until they hone their craft, until they become you know rock stars. And hip hop, the music leads first. So you usually you have a hit record and then you throw this person on stage who's never been on stage before, you know, because the music leads. So they don't have any experience on how to perform in front of people , hold the mic, you know, all these different things that you need to know as a performer. So when you get up there, you feel naked , right? So when you feel naked , it was the first thing you do. You cover yourself. So that bravado was an act of I am so nervous right now. I'm scared to death. I'm going to act so tough that I'm going to hide it and I have to grab my crotch. That's just what happens. I thought it was kind of the opposite like this stuff is so good Yeah, they want that's what we want you to believe. But the reality is and no one else will admit to this maybe they will is you're on stage in front of now with summer jams and things like that. People are getting put on stage in front of fifty thousand people with a record that's a radio hit and they've never performed before. It's going to be a disaster nine times out of ten. So do you feel like you were on the stage before you prepared for it? Probably not because you did parties before that. You had experience. Exactly. I kind of went through a rock and roll stage. You know, I kind of was doing parties and learning to perform. The first show I ever did, I just forgot the words. I stood there and I tried to pass the mic to Damon Dash, who I co founded Rockefeller with. I gave him the mic like, hey, he was like, man, I don't rap . I just didn't know what to do. I was like in shock . So but really like you've done the crotch thing too, right? Of course. So why are you doing it? You're not afraid to be on stage . Yeah, I just told you. When the first time I performed, I was okay . I forgot the words. Okay . I didn't do it my last show, Yankee Stadium. No . But yeah, but my earlier shows, yes . So let's let's get another song in here. And let's do ninety nine problems. We'll do the clean version . Aw it's radio, my friend. So this is actually based on a story , loosely based on a story that happened to you, would you explain ? Well, it's based on a generational story as well . There's a higher thing. Like there was a time where there was a lot of activity going on on turnpike from New York headed south because there was a lot of drugs going back and forth . And so the state troopers at that time just blanketed every single car, anybody that was of color and it was this term driving while black and people were getting pulled over for absolutely no reason other than their color . So I just had to set the scene up. So now we're driving and we're doing we're actually doing something bad. You know, we're transporting drugs from New York to down south and we get pulled over by a state trooper, but we get pulled over for absolutely nothing . We're wrong, the cop is wrong. This conversation ensues and it's racial undertones and he says, do you have a gun on you like a lot of you are? You know, just that statement right there. And the conversation between two people are both in the wrong, but are both used to get in their way . So there's this clever banter that goes back and forth between the two. Okay, and we're going to hear the part of the song that deals with the story that you just told . And again, it's the clean version, so a lot of the words are going to sound kind of it's the second verse . Yes, yeah. And I will say that one of the words that isn't clearly said here because it's distorted because it's the clean version is the word bitch , which in the context of this part of the song means dog because you're talking about canine dogs here . Yeah . Because now was the writer and me being provocative because that's what rap should be as well, you know, at times . That was really directed to all the people who hear buzzwords and rap music. They hear bitch or hoe or something and immediately dismiss everything else that takes place . And everything has to be put in context . And when you put it in context, you realize that I was n't calling any female besides a female dog a bit on this song. Is that in spite of the opening part that says if you're having girl problems, I feel bad for you, son. I've got ninety nine problems but the bitch ain' . Yeah, that was to lead the listener down the wrong path if you were looking for that sort of thing. Okay . Yeah . So here's ninety nine problems by my guest, Jay Z. Hit me here's ninety four where my trunk is wrong. Hit my rear view. There is the money that two choice pull over the car . Bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the room. Nin' trying to see no holy chase me . Plus I got a few dollars I could fight the kids so I broke over to the side of the road I heard do you know why I'm stopping you from because I'm young and I'm blackin' my hat's real low. Do I look like a mind reader sir? I don't know. Come on, Dorress shit I guess someone. Well, you are doing fifty five into fifty four huh? Lock in the reputation is stepped by the car, you carrying a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are stepping out of the car. No papers and chick.en We'll do you mind if I come around the car a little bit? My glove compartment is locked so it's the trunk in the back and I know my bright so you gonna need a war for that you shall protect. You're some type of law or something somebody in partner sometimes. I ain't passed the ball, but I know a little bit enough that you won't illegally search myself. Let's see how smart you are in the Canades car. I've got ninety nine problems with a chain one. Hit me ninety nine problems but of a one. You have a girl problems I'm for back for you son. I got ninety nine problems but of a one. Hit me . There was ninety nine problems by my guest, Jay Z. Do we have time for the other ninety eight problems ? No, I think it's nine minutes . So part of that story is that canine the c,ops ' canine corps was supposed to be coming after you. You got to they let you go just before the dogs came . Yeah , it was I guess it was far away on another call and the cop tried to hold us. He really had no probable cause, no reason to hold us. So he just said, man, get out of here. And as we left about ten minutes up the ride , we see this car, sirens blaring, screeching down, and we look on the side and we see canine unit and we just all just a little sigh of relief like that was close you were holding so . Yeah, the canine would have came, we've smelted and we would have been finished. It would have no book . Right, right . Yeah, and lots of things. So I really have to ask impression of this , you know , President Bush in his new memoir says that a low point of his presidency was when Kanye West, your friend Kanye West , said a hurricane Katrina benefit that George Bush doesn't care about black people . So he thought that that was really emphiric because he was being called a racist when he's not. Kanye has since apologized to the president . So what's your take on how this thing has played out? You know, first I find it strange like everyone else should that one of his lowest points was somebody talking about him . He's the president, you know , people should insult him a lot. That's part of the job description. People are not going to be happy with what you do . And when certain events happen like Katina and then you see people , you know, on the roof and there people of color for the most part and there's help on the roof . This is happening in America on TV. And then you see the commander in chief, you know, just drive by on, you know, on a plane, which I explained in, you know, in the book and in this song called Minority Report, you know, we were all angry. It didn't feel like a natural disaster. It felt like something that was happening directly to blacks. And it immediately brought us back to those images of people getting beaten with sprayed with hoses and beaten on the bridge at selma. And all these emotions were going on inside of us. Kanye really spoke what everyone else felt. You know, when he said that, everyone immediately was like, That's exactly how we all feel. And that's just how we felt. You know, it felt more than a national disaster. We felt like if that had happened somewhere else that wouldn't be happening. And calling people a refugee in their own, you know, in their own home they're fighting to what steal the TV they can't plug in anywhere. I mean, they're obviously frustrated and scared and angry the whole thing was just handled horribly wrong and you know, days going by would, you know, I can go on for days . So I think Kanye if Kanye apologized and I mean, you know, he said it. So, you know, that's that's how he felt. But what he said was how everyone felt . And very briefly, I know President Obama is a fan of yours . You supported him , and you write about how you met him in the book very briefly because we're out of time because I know you're so busy. Your thoughts about his presidency so far still thumbs up or speaking of Bush , you know, he 's left the worst eight years of our life. In order to judge Obama, you have to judge what happened before. You have to judge what he inherited. I think a lot of people would like to forget, you know, what we were coming out of and what was left on the desk for the incoming president . I think he's had so many challenges and you know, I applaud his effort and you know where he's going. Of course it's not a hundred percent , but you know, you got we have to take into context what he's inherited and what he what he's working with. He's working from in the negative. And if you think that he can fix eight years worth of dam age well more but eight years worth of damage in two years than I don't know. I don't know if that's even realistic . Well, Jesse, it's been really great to talk with you. Thank you so much Having a great time. Thank you . My interview with Jay Z was recorded in november twenty ten. Our plus bonus episodes are produced by Chow Tu , our engineer is Audrey Bentham. I'm Terry Gross, thanks for your continued support of our work here at Fresh Air.