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Rap's HOLY GRAIL: Jay-Z Writes POETRY, With Pen And Pad...In His HEAD!
That which is intellectually considered,
We call R-e-a-s-o-n;
Considered in relation to nature,
We call S-p-i-r-i-t.
Spirit is the CREATOR.
Spirit hath Life itself,
And Man in all Ages and Countries,
Embodies it in his L-a-n-g-u-a-g-e;
As the FATHER.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
IN THE HOOD, there're two popular slang WORDS:
One is "Bling", the other is "Dope".
Bugatti is Bling.
In Compton, in Watts. And the Southside of Queens.
To roll in a Lamborghini through the Hamptons;
that's pure automotive fun.
BUT in a place like 'Marcy' in Brooklyn;
if a Ferrari took a walk, that would be the ultimate poetry-on-wheels.
We're talking of "Bling" strolling!
In the hood, hip-hop lives like a cat with nine lives.
You can't stop it, you won't stop it.
Just because, the life...wouldn't go away.
Hip-hop was born, a little child, into a strange WORLD.
He was reared by a single parent on the Southside of Bronx, New York.
As a little boy, hip-hop would wear Levi's, T-shirts, and tennis shoes.
And the base ball cap was donned, the hippie way.
As a teen, he'd listen to Rap from the boom-box;
while he jumped the hoop, or painted graffiti on the side-wall.
As an adult, perhaps he would lay down a few verses and hooks;
do rap battles, or do free-styles.
He would speak the vernacular of slang:
where to beautify is to "pimp", to be authentic is to "do you",
and a house is called a "crib".
If he were lucky to hit the big-time:
in a world of cribs, his mansion would itself be a figure of speech.
Something like, a hyperbole.
In actual fact, a Crib-of-the-MTV kind is nothing else,
but bling!
The world of big chains:
necklaces, bracelets, and even piercings, constitutes pure metaphor.
The women:
the chicks and the broads, the baes and the wives of hip-hop,
are all ballads. Or sonnets.
And everything that glitters is said to b-l-i-n-g.
And everybody that matters is said to be d-o-p-e.
In the hood, the terms bling and dope are like Siamese twins.
They're difficult to separate, one from the other.
But bling cannot separate the folks who know that to respect
the struggle is pure d-o-pe.
HE WAS BORN as Shawn Corey Carter in Brooklyn, in 1969.
As a kid, he got his nick-name from an older guy called Jazzy
and perhaps, Brooklyn's J/Z Subway.
He began from his mother's kitchen-table,
tapping out beatZ that would serve as backgound for his flowZ.
His name is Jay-Z.
"All I got is, DREAMS:
Nobody else believes,
Nobody else can see,
Nobody else be ME.
Men lie, women lie;
But numbers don't.
I'd rather die enormous,
Than live dormant"
He grew up as a smart boy, even though his father
walked out on them when he was eleven years old.
As "Crack" fed men's appetite fat in the streets, rats and 'roaches
feasted on house furnishings, and life began to look so bleak.
Fortune sang a mournful tune:
children became parents, and parents became children -
In the hood.
In the face of grim and grime, Jay-Z became bent on dope,
as well as bling.
In his teens, dope was Crack.
In his twenties and thirties, dope became Rap.
Jay-Z is a level-head when it comes to bling.
Even more so, in his forties.
Bling wielded the power to distract; but not discipline.
"I'm l-o-n-g for KNOWLEDGE. The whole thing is to LEARN everyday,
to get brighter and brighter. That's what this WORLD is about.
"You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed.
Muhammad Ali glows.
"I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
That's what you should be doing your whole time on the planet.
"Then you feel like, 'My life is worth everything. And yours is too",
he says.
LIFE is interesting, nevertheless intriguing.
Life wears a veil...like in the hood.
"Hard Knock Life", Jay-Z calls it.
Like every other man or woman, his hustle was simply to peel away the veil.
One layer, then another.
Beginning from adolescence, days turned into weeks;
and the weeks turned into months.
Now, Jay is close on forty-seven years,
still trying to escape "the hood"...or "the burden".
"The burden of Poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need,
it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your Life,
and you'd do anything to lift that burden", reiterates Jay-Z.
Burdens constitute the hood.
You can call it Life's "hood" or Liveli-hood.
From South Central L.A, to the Southside of Chicago.
From the Macy Projects, to the Barclays Center. In Brooklyn.
Life in the ghetto-hood?
Crime is a burden. Climate Change is a burden.
There's the burden of Health, there's the burden of Finance.
There's Religious burden. There's Political burden.
The World is full of burdens, all Men are in the hood.
A factory worker has his burden, and a pregnant woman too.
So does an autistic child, as well as a dexlexic adult.
School work is also a burden.
Life in the neighbour-hood?
"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...with words they need, to
make sense of the world they see around them.
"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", says Jay-Z.
Come to me,
All who labour and are heavy-laden,
And I will give you REST.
Take my yoke upon you,
And learn from Me;
For I AM gentle and lowly in heart,
And you will find REST for your SOULS.
For my yoke is easy,
And my burden is light.
( Psalms 55:22 )
NATURALLY therefore, Life necessitates the question of IDENTITY.
Jay-Z's album titled, "Reasonable Doubt", readily comes to mind.
The burden of Race, or the burden of Nationality.
The burden of Vocation, the burden of Family, or the burden of Personhood.
How do we un-ravel identity?
Is it by Censorship?
Or is it by Conversation?
Identity has its foundation in Person-hood,
which perhaps is a reflection of Family-hood? or Neighbour-hood?
Or Nation-hood?
We begin with Conversation, like the Rapper.
"IDENTITY is a prison you can't 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", declares Jay-Z.
HUSTLE is your first way of Conversation, by which you begin
to un-ravel the Veil of Life. On your own.
You can call it Vocation.
It's a means by which you lift the "burden" of identity.
Richard Leakey talks about evolution of Mastery, or respect for the Work Ethic:
"For three million years, we were hunter-gatherers and it was through the evolutionary
pressures of that way of LIFE, that the BRAIN so adaptable and CREATIVE eventually emerged.
"Today, we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our HEADS", concludes Leakey.
There are alternative ways of doing things.
I'm not telling you about Jay-Z dealing dope-cocaine,
but I'm telling you about him selling dope-tracks.
The journey from the Streets, to the Studios, to the Offices,
and to the Boardrooms. That's what.
"Can't Knock the Hu$tle", sings Jay-Z. "Rap is built to handle contradictions".
Creativity brings you closer to the CREATOR;
which in turn brings you closer to the true source of ALL IDENTITY -
The TRUTH.
"It's always been most important for me to figure out my space,
rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute.
"Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but it may be harder
to keep connected to yourself, and that's essential for any ARTIST...
"Within all the numbers and chaos, I was searching for the TRUTH", says Jay-Z.
VISION creates patterns of Life.
DREAMS require that you look in the Mirror.
Life could make a man look the 2D or Panoramic way; like when Jay-Z chose
the path of selling Crack - which made his mind to 'wander' too much to the side.
It's a lower kind of view, in retrospect.
But the 3D or Stereoscopic vision, offers depth.
For example, making dope records empowered Jay-Z to look straight-ahead -
with a laser-like focus.
It's a higher kind of View.
Looking in the Mirror is the way we imitate the Muse.
The HU$TLE...no doubt requires Learning.
A Man's Life necessitates the use of the "Mirror Neurons",
already planted in the Mind by GOD.
The Mirror is the hunter's weapon.
But the prey is NOT your fellow man.
The Vision is for you to decode your Mission.
I'm Chuck, I'm not a biter.
I'm a WRITER,
For Myself and Others.
-I say a B.I.G Verse -
I'm only biggin' up my brother,
Biggin' up my borough.
I'm big enough to do it,
I'm that thorough...
( Jay-Z )
Back in 1993, Jay-Z started playing his mind-games:
writing the lyrics of Rap, plus laying down gold and platinum tracks.
Suddenly, everything seemed to be falling into place. Miraculously.
It became easier to call him J-Hova.
Jay-Z is otherwise called Jigga-Man.
But no one would ever mistake either name for J-Hova.
J-HOVA is like an elevation, meaning the "GOD-MC".
In his book, "Decoded" ( 2010 ), Jay confesses how he
became the so-called "Master of All Flows".
"You can't fake whatever the current trend is, if it's not in you;
because it might work for a second, but it's a house of sand".
Thus did Jay-Z transcend the hype of hip-hop;
with several multi-platinum albums, twenty-one Grammy Awards, and twenty-four trademarks -
to become the phenomenon nicknamed, J-Hova.
In a natural sense, it's a story of translation from
"Homo sapiens...to Homo magester";
from the level of "Man...to that of Master", says Robert Greene.
In a super-natural sense, Jay-Hova is about A SON
looking in the Mirror, and seeing the image of THE FATHER -
Jehovah!
Except the LORD builds a house,
They labour in vain that build it;
Except the LORD watches the city,
The watch is in vain.
( Psalms 127, "A Story of Ascent" )
RAP Music derives its magic from the MUSE.
It's a medium for unravelling the h-o-o-d.
In fact, every level of m-y-s-t-e-r-y.
In this LIFE.
Between the Rapper and the Muse,
the connective tissue is a Language - "The FLOWS".
"If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time,
how we live through it, sings Jay-Z.
"The beat is everywhere, but every LIFE
has to find its own FLOWS".
For example:
Twenty-Two Two's( 1996 ) ; Fourty-Four Four's ( 2006 )!
Rap at its best, is nothing but POETRY.
"It's important to explain that Rap is Poetry, not just some frivolous Music...
It's thought-provoking, there's thought behind it. There's great writing as well", says Jay.
In the old days, Music was made as LYRICS, by combining
Voice with the instrument called a Lyre.
But in Rap, two turntables, a mixer and a microphone
have overtaken the lyre.
When Tupac rapped, the effort and artistry showed.
And Biggie masterfully rolled out lyrics from his big frame.
"When Jay-Z raps, it pours right into your ear like
water from a tap", confirms Zadie Smith.
IDENTITY has much to do with TRUTH,
and truth has a lot to do with the authenticity -
especially in the attempt to make lyrical flows, like "H to the Izzo".
"I believe you can speak things into existence", Hova admits.
"Remind yourself, nobody's built like you; you design yourself.
Everything evens up, you just wait; even a garbage-can gets steak;
"you're not even a garbage-can, you have FAITH".
"But the irony of it is that to make the hustle work;
really work, over the long term, you have to be A TRUE ARTIST".
When a lyricist can make WORDS stroll with ease
into the midst of the beats looming from a turntable and a mixer;
the MC with the M.I.C ( or Microphone ) becomes a serious
contender for Societal CHANGE.
Jay-Z talks about his early obsession with WORDS,
from the time a teacher taught him how to use a dictionary.
He remembers writing rhymes late into the night,
until his mom would compel him to go to bed.
"Everywhere I went, I'd write.If I was crossing the street
with my friends and a rhyme came to me, I'd break out my binder;
spread it on the mailbox or lamp-post and write the Rhymes
before I crossed the Street", he reminisces.
"Pre-verbal intelligence" fore-dates and transcends our
human ability to articulate or describe in words.
BUT Hova started mastering the art of WRITING his Rap POETRY,
simply by commiting stringed-together-words as memory-blocks...in his HEAD.
Especially when he was out in the Street, hustling.
"Rhymes On the Fly", sort of.
I'm the King of Hip-Hop,
Renewed like Reebok;
Rhymes key in the lock,
Rhymes so provocative.
- As long as I Live -
( Jay-Z )
Jay-Z began writing verses as young as age nine.
The Rapper's Delight is to turn Sh*t into Sugar;
just like the early rap group called the Sugarhill Gang.
Rap engages literary devices to express Life.
It's a language that plays with metaphors, puns, similes,
alliteration, hyperbole, personification, and allusions.
Rap's Poetry is not only about WORD-PLAY, and for a Rapper like Hova,
it doesn't matter where you place your NOTEBOOK...even if it has to be in the HEAD.
"A Poet's Mission is to make Words do more Work, than they normally do;
to make them work on more than one level", says Jay.
"Hip - Hop lyrics, not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC
are POETRY, if you look at them closely enough".
In the book, "Anthology of Rap" co-edited by Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois,
Professors of English at the Universities of Colorado and Toronto respectively,
Rap lyrics are placed on an equal pedestal of RESPECT, as POETRY.
I
I'm the authentic poet to get lyrical:
The creator, conductor of poetry,
Et cetera, et cetera;
It ain't easy being me.
For you to beat me,
It's gonna take a miracle.
( Big Daddy Kane, "Ain't No Half-Stepping" )
II
Who am I?
I am the lyrical pastor,
Slave to a label;
But I own my masters.
( Pharoah Monch, "Desire" )
III
Well I have to be known:
And I'm known to be,
As an electrified prince of poetry.
( Cold Crush Brothers' JDL )
IV
Listen close to my poetry:
I examine this,
Like an analyst to see,
If you can handle this.
( The Roots, "Next Movement" )
V
I am a poet:
You try to show it, yet blow it.
It takes concentration,
for fresh communication.
Observation, that's to see without speaking.
Take off your coat,
Take notes,
I am teaching.
( KRS-One, "Poetry" )
APART FROM a handful of white MCs, Hip-Hop is a form of black-folk ART.
Black Tie. Black Cars. Black Bar Mitvahs.
Black Maybachs. Black Girls in painting.
All Black Everything.
Black No Longer the Shadow. Black Excellence.
Then, "The Black Album", by Jay-Z.
Eventually the pendulum swings:
Don't forget America,
This is how you made me;
Come through with your mask on,
Spray everything like SAMO,
Though I won't scratch the Lambo;
What's it gonna take for me to go,
For y'all to see?
I'm the modern-day Pablo Picasso.
( Jay-Z )
Artists like Jay-Z have used the Rap Poetry form to win
Respect for Hip-Hop.
"Decoded" is an example of a literary gem, written to replace the customized Lamborghini,
as the new hip-hop "bling".
"Ain't No Nigga", says one of his spirited numbers.
In fact, Jay has zero tolerance for disrespect.
For instance, he ditched championing the liquor label, "Cristal" in his tracks,
because its Managing Director Frederic Rouzaud slighted the so-called "Bling Lifestyle"
( The Economist, 2010 ).
"I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts.
What you see is what you reflect.
"If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm stand-offish, that's
because you are", he explains.
Talking of "bling", Sarah Haltenstone said this about Jay-Z:
"That's part of my personality.
It's the duality between good taste and ostentation.
"There's great stuff in both worlds.
"Things aren't as they might first appear. He brings the necklace out from under
the T-shirt to reveal the most dazzling, chunkiest, blingest gold-and-diamond
'JESUS' you could ever hope to see".
Hova is the boy from the hood, who turned out good.
So there you have it, sh*t happens:
Just make sure the plane you're on
Is bigger than your carry-on baggage;
Everyone goes through stuff.
Life's a gift,
Love opens it up...
( Jay-Z )
FINALLY, Rap has not only just made commercial success,
World-wide.
Its perculiar poetic resonance has opened special pages
in the history of intellectual property.
Jay-Z whose "God Name" is J-Hova, brings to mind,
the "WORD".
He has achieved the accolade of "Master of All Flows",
perhaps the mundane equivalent of Jesus Christ whose other name is the "WORD".
When you happen on Hova walking around,
rubbing his palms, and bobbing his head;
all he's waiting for, is a M.I.C.
And the POETRY he's WRITING...in his head
might as well be from the WORD:
"HEAVEN".
Y'all, Religion creates division,
Like my Maybach partitioning,
GOD is my chauffeur...
I confess God in the flesh,
Live among the serpents;
Turn arenas into CHURCHES...
These are verses from the BIBLE,
Tell the Preacher he's a Preacher...
I arrive at pearly gates -
I had luggage, meaning baggage;
Niggas asking questions,
I don't answer to these busters -
Only God could judge us...
Have you ever been to Heaven?
Have you ever been to Heaven?
( Jay-Z )
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