Decoded. Part 4

When the politicians can't censor you and the industry can't marginalize you, call the cops. The statistics on the incarceration of black men, particularly of men of my generation, are probably the most objective indication that young black men are seen in this country as a "problem" that can be made to literally disappear. No one in the entire world-not in Russia or China or Iran-is locked up like black men are locked up in this country.

I had to deal with the cops when I was hustling, and that made sense. I had to deal with the cops before that, too, because even before I started running the streets, I was on their radar just because of who I was. But when I was done with the streets, and done with my one major brush with law enforcement after I left the streets, I still wasn't done with five-oh.

One night I was at Ba.s.sline with my man Tone from Trackmasters, working on the song that would become "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" on the Blueprint Blueprint alb.u.m. I left the studio to run by Club Exit in midtown because I had promised Ja Rule that I'd come by and join him for our big hit "Can I Get A..." I went to the club, performed the song, and ten minutes later I left. I hopped in my Suburban with Ty-Ty and my bodyguard and the driver pulls off. We were one block away from the club when an unmarked police van cut us off, like in a movie. Since there's a limo part.i.tion in the SUV, it took me a few minutes to see what was happening, but it sounded like a raid-sirens flas.h.i.+ng, cops yelling. When I lifted the part.i.tion I saw half a dozen squad cars surrounding us. My bodyguard was already out of the car and a detective was showcasing his gun up in the air like he had found something. But my bodyguard claimed the gun and showed them his license. I was in the backseat laughing because they were so overdoing it, but the next thing I knew someone was opening my door and putting their hands on me, trying to drag me out of the car and make me turn around. I tried to talk to them. "You know this isn't necessary; he has a license, he claimed the weapon. What's the problem?" The cop looked back at me with that alb.u.m. I left the studio to run by Club Exit in midtown because I had promised Ja Rule that I'd come by and join him for our big hit "Can I Get A..." I went to the club, performed the song, and ten minutes later I left. I hopped in my Suburban with Ty-Ty and my bodyguard and the driver pulls off. We were one block away from the club when an unmarked police van cut us off, like in a movie. Since there's a limo part.i.tion in the SUV, it took me a few minutes to see what was happening, but it sounded like a raid-sirens flas.h.i.+ng, cops yelling. When I lifted the part.i.tion I saw half a dozen squad cars surrounding us. My bodyguard was already out of the car and a detective was showcasing his gun up in the air like he had found something. But my bodyguard claimed the gun and showed them his license. I was in the backseat laughing because they were so overdoing it, but the next thing I knew someone was opening my door and putting their hands on me, trying to drag me out of the car and make me turn around. I tried to talk to them. "You know this isn't necessary; he has a license, he claimed the weapon. What's the problem?" The cop looked back at me with that shut up, n.i.g.g.e.r shut up, n.i.g.g.e.r screwface, but I could tell he was confused. This wasn't going as planned. He asked his partner what he should do. Right in front of me his partner made a call and explained the situation to whoever was on the other end. "I got Jay-Z," he said into the phone, with a sense of accomplishment. Then he told his man to arrest me. I was dumbstruck as they loaded me into the back of the cruiser like a prize catch. screwface, but I could tell he was confused. This wasn't going as planned. He asked his partner what he should do. Right in front of me his partner made a call and explained the situation to whoever was on the other end. "I got Jay-Z," he said into the phone, with a sense of accomplishment. Then he told his man to arrest me. I was dumbstruck as they loaded me into the back of the cruiser like a prize catch.

When they got me to the precinct for questioning, I saw a giant Peg-Board, the sort you've seen before in police television shows and movies. On the Peg-Board were organizational charts of rappers, like you'd have for a major crime organization, like the mafia. But for rappers. rappers. Once they had me, they made me do the perp walk, the police-escorted stroll in public, which meant dragging me in front of all the photographers outside the precinct. The charges were dropped, of course-it clearly wasn't my weapon. But they made sure to humiliate me first. With my other case still pending, this would help paint the picture of me as a menace to society. Once they had me, they made me do the perp walk, the police-escorted stroll in public, which meant dragging me in front of all the photographers outside the precinct. The charges were dropped, of course-it clearly wasn't my weapon. But they made sure to humiliate me first. With my other case still pending, this would help paint the picture of me as a menace to society.

If I were just a fan or a casual observer of hip-hop and you told me the NYPD had created a squad or division to deal with rappers, I'd laugh in your face. But it's clear now that the hip-hop police existed-there have been some media investigations and even a public admission by one prominent detective, the so-called hip-hop cop. Dossiers were created on rappers and their a.s.sociates, cops staked out shows and nightclubs and followed rappers in broad daylight. The hip-hop cop stayed stayed outside the clubs I was in. Every time I walked into a club he'd joke with me. outside the clubs I was in. Every time I walked into a club he'd joke with me. You got a gun? You got a gun? I would f.u.c.k with him right back: I would f.u.c.k with him right back: Do you? Do you? For seven years that cop was there, at every club, every show. For seven years that cop was there, at every club, every show.

But I still have to ask myself why. Rappers, as a cla.s.s, are not engaged in anything criminal. They're musicians. Some rappers and friends of rappers commit crimes. Some bus drivers commit crimes. Some accountants commit crimes. But there aren't task forces devoted to bus drivers or accountants. Bus drivers don't have to work under the preemptive suspicion of law enforcement. The difference is obvious, of course: Rappers are young black men telling stories that the police, among others, don't want to hear. Rappers tend to come from places where police are accustomed to treating everybody like a suspect. The general style of rappers is offensive to a lot of people. But being offensive is not a crime, at least not one that's on the books. The fact that law enforcement treats rap like organized crime tells you a lot about just how deeply rap offends some people-they'd love for rap itself itself to be a crime, but until they get that law pa.s.sed, they come after us however they can. to be a crime, but until they get that law pa.s.sed, they come after us however they can.

Sometimes it's surprising to find out who's trying to put the invisibility cloak on you. It's one thing when it comes from the government or from the people in the larger music industry who are trying to keep n.i.g.g.as in their place. But it's harder to take coming from other artists.

In 2008 I was invited to play at the Glas...o...b..ry Festival in England. I took the gig because it was a chance to knock some doors down for the culture. It's a huge festival, one of the largest outdoor festivals in the world. It started in the seventies and mostly featured rock music, even though the definition of rock music wasn't always clear-what do Ma.s.sive Attack, Radiohead, the Arctic Monkeys, Bjork, and the Pet Shop Boys really have in common? Well, here's one thing: None of them rap. When it was announced that I'd be headlining Glas...o...b..ry, Noel Gallagher of Oasis said, "I'm not having hip-hop at Glas...o...b..ry. It's wrong." That quote that went around-"I'm not having hip-hop"-said a lot, like he had a veto. But kids today have a mix of songs from all over the place in their iPods, and they take pride in it. There is no rock music with walls around it. It's one of the great s.h.i.+fts that's happened over my lifetime, that popular culture has managed to shake free of the constraints that still limit us in so many other parts of life. It's an open field.

As planned, I played that show in front of 180,000 people. I stood backstage with my crew and we looked out at the crowd. It wasn't like any other crowd I'd played. There were tens of thousands of people staring up at the stage but it might as well have been a million-bodies covered my entire field of vision. We were under a dark, open sky. Their cheers and chants were like a tidal wave of sound cras.h.i.+ng over the stage. It was awesome and a little ominous.

Before I came out, we played a video intro reel about the controversy that included Gallagher's quote that I had "f.u.c.king no chance" of pulling off Glas...o...b..ry. Then I walked out on stage with an electric guitar hanging around my neck and started singing Oasis's biggest hit, "Wonderwall." It went over big. Then I tore through my set, with my band, a band, by the way, that's as "Rock" as any band in the world. The show was amazing, one of the highlights of my career. It was one of those moments that taught me that there really is no limit to what hip-hop could do, no place that was closed to its power.

My purposefully f.u.c.ked-up version of "Wonderwall" put it back on the charts a decade after it came out, ironically.

The whole sequence felt familiar to me-that same sense of someone putting their hands and weight on me, trying to push me back to the margins. Telling me to be quiet, not to get into the frame of their pristine picture. It's the story of my life and the story of hip-hop. But the beautiful thing at Glas...o...b..ry was that when I opened with "Wonderwall," over a hundred thousand voices rose up into that dark sky to join mine. It was a joke, but it was also kind of beautiful. And then when I segued into "99 Problems," a hundred thousand voices rocked the chorus with me. To the crowd, it wasn't rock and rap or a battle of genres-it was music.

LIKE IT'S '92 AGAIN AND I GOT O'S IN THE RENTALS Little controversies like Glas...o...b..ry felt like the death spasms of an old way of thinking. Even in the world outside of music, things really were changing. For instance, there was Bill Clinton. In 1992, when he was running for president, Clinton made a point of publicly denouncing Sister Souljah at a Rainbow Coalition event-he compared her to David Duke, the white supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the KKK-because of some comments she made after the L.A. riots. At the time, everyone knew he was trying to prove to white America that he could stand up to black people, particularly young black people involved in hip-hop, and especially in the aftermath of the L.A. riots. He knew that demonizing young black people, their politics, and their art was always a winning move in American politics.

In 1992 I was, well, I won't get into details, but I was probably somewhere in the Middle Atlantic region of the United States, doing things that Bill Clinton probably wouldn't have approved of. I wasn't registered to vote back then, and even if I was, I don't know that I would've bothered to vote for Bill. Clinton was known as being comfortable with black folks; he played the sax on a.r.s.enio Hall's show and some people even talked about him as the "first black President." He wasn't, of course. Even if he liked black people, whatever that means, back in '92 he saw people like me as a punching bag he could use to get votes from people nothing like me, people who hated me. In other words, he didn't see people like me at all. I can't say I saw him, either.

By 2008, I actually knew Bill Clinton. I first really sat down with him at the Spotted Pig. Bono brought him in one night and we hung out for a long time in the back room of the restaurant, joking and talking about music. It was so strange for me, sitting across the table from Bill Clinton, swapping stories. It made the distance between 1992 and 2008 seem deeper than just the pa.s.sage of time. The world had changed around us, like it had been hit by some kind of cultural earthquake that rearranged everything. Like we'd all been launched into the air in 1992, me from the block, him from the White House, and somehow we landed next to each other in the back room of the Spotted Pig on a banquette with Bono.

I like Bill Clinton. He has a quick laugh and genuine curiosity and a big appet.i.te for life. That night at the Spotted Pig he went to the kitchen and posed for photos with the busboys and waiters and signed every autograph he could before he left. He was clearly big-hearted. He'd done a lot of good as president. But he'd also taken the country to war in the Balkans and sat in his office while AIDS ravaged Africa and genocide broke out in Rwanda. And one day in 1992 he looked out at an audience of black people and told them that Sister Souljah was as bad as the Klan.

But I'm not exactly the same person I was in 1992, either. Everyone needs a chance to evolve.

YOU GOT IT, f.u.c.k BUSH.

Another Clinton was running for president in 2008, but, as much as I'd come to like the Clintons, I wasn't supporting Hillary. Wasn't even considering it. I'd done some campaign events in 2004 when Kerry was running for president, but in 2008, for the first time in my life, I was committed to a candidate for president in a big way.

A close friend of Barack Obama is a big fan of my music and reached out to someone in my camp to set up a meeting. This was still pretty early in the process, before the primaries had gotten started, and I hadn't really engaged with the whole thing yet or given any money to anyone or anything. All I knew was that I was sick about what had happened with this country since 9/11, the wars and torture, the response to Hurricane Katrina, the arrogance and dishonesty of the Bush administration. I sat down with Barack at a one-on-one meeting set up by that mutual friend and we talked for hours. People always ask me what we talked about, and I wish I could remember some specific moment when it hit me that this guy was special. But it wasn't like that. It was the fact that he sought me out and then asked question after question, about music, about where I'm from, about what people in my circle-not the circle of wealthy entertainers, but the wider circle that reaches out to my fans and all the way back to Marcy-were thinking and concerned about politically. He listened. It was extraordinary.

More than anything specific that he said, I was impressed by who he was. Supporters of Barack are sometimes criticized for getting behind him strictly because of his biography rather than his policies. I thought his policies were good, and I liked his approach to solving problems, but I'm not going to lie: Who he was was very important to me. He was my peer, or close to it, like a young uncle or an older brother. His defining experiences were in the nineties in the projects of Chicago, where he lived and worked as a community organizer before going to Harvard Law School. He'd seen me-or some version of me-in those Chicago streets, and we lived around a lot of the same kinds of things over those years, although obviously from very different angles. I could see he wasn't going to be one of those guys who burned hip-hop in effigy to get a few votes. He even had the guts to tell the press that he had my music on his iPod.

And he was black. This was big. This was a chance to go from centuries of invisibility to the most visible position in the entire world. He could, through sheer symbolism, regardless of any of his actual policies, change the lives of millions of black kids who now saw something different to aspire to. That would happen on the day he was elected, regardless of anything else that happened in his term. No other candidate could promise so much.

Early on, there were a lot of influential black people who didn't think he could win and withheld their support. I got into some serious arguments with people I respect over supporting Barack over Hillary. But I could see what Barack in the White House would mean to kids who were coming up the way I came up. And having met the man, I felt like Barack wasn't going to lose. I ran into him again at a fund-raiser at L. A. Reid's house and he pulled my coat: "Man, I'm going to be calling you again."

I was touring at the time for the American Gangster American Gangster alb.u.m, and when I hit the lyric in "Blue Magic" where I say alb.u.m, and when I hit the lyric in "Blue Magic" where I say f.u.c.k Bush, f.u.c.k Bush, I'd segue into "Minority Report," my song about Hurricane Katrina from the I'd segue into "Minority Report," my song about Hurricane Katrina from the Kingdom Come Kingdom Come alb.u.m. The jumbo screen behind me would go black and then up would come an image of Barack Obama. The crowd would always go wild. I would quickly make the point that Barack was not asking me to do this-and he hadn't. I didn't want him to get caught up in having to defend every one of my lyrics or actions. I've done some stuff even I have trouble explaining-I definitely didn't want him to have to. I didn't want my lyrics to end up in a question at a presidential debate. I knew enough about politics and the media to know that something that trivial could derail him. alb.u.m. The jumbo screen behind me would go black and then up would come an image of Barack Obama. The crowd would always go wild. I would quickly make the point that Barack was not asking me to do this-and he hadn't. I didn't want him to get caught up in having to defend every one of my lyrics or actions. I've done some stuff even I have trouble explaining-I definitely didn't want him to have to. I didn't want my lyrics to end up in a question at a presidential debate. I knew enough about politics and the media to know that something that trivial could derail him.

I thought a lot about that. There were people like Reverend Jeremiah Wright who caused trouble for Barack because of things they'd said or done in the past but refused to lay low, even when it was clear they were hurting the cause. I was happy to play the back and not draw attention to myself. I didn't need to be onstage or in every picture with him. I just wanted him to win.

But he did eventually call me and ask me to help. It was in the fall of the year and he told me he wanted to close it out like Jordan. So I did a bunch of free shows all over the country before the election to encourage young people to register to vote. I wasn't surprised at the historically low rate of voting among young black people because I'd been there myself. But I had to make it clear to them: If you want s.h.i.+t to get better in your neighborhood, you have to be the one who puts the guy in office. If you vote for him, he owes you. That's the game-it's a hustle. But even aside from all that, I told people, this election is bigger than politics. As cliche as it might sound, it was about hope.

THIS MIGHT OFFEND MY POLITICAL CONNECTS.

When I came to Was.h.i.+ngton for the inauguration-needless to say, the first inauguration of my life-I just wanted to soak it all in, every second of it. As soon as I walked into the lobby of the hotel where I was staying, the vibe was unlike anything I'd ever felt, people of all races and ages just thrilled to see each other. Beyonce performed at the Lincoln Memorial the day before the inauguration and I decided to watch her from the crowd, so I could feel the energy of everyday people. It was unbelievable to see us-me, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Puff, and other people I've known for so long, who represent people I've known my whole life-sharing in this rite of pa.s.sage, one of America's grandest displays of pageantry.

On the day of the inauguration, I came down in the elevator of the hotel with Ty-Ty. An older white woman in the elevator with us turned and admired Ty-Ty's suit and gently straightened his tie. It wasn't patronizing at all, it felt as comfortable as if we were family. We had seats for the ceremony, which was an unexpected honor, and from underneath my Russian mink hat (it was two degrees below zero) I watched Air Force II-the president's helicopter, with George Bush in it-take off from the White House while a million people chanted nah-nah-nah-nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye. And then the moment came when Barack faced the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and took the oath of office to become the forty-fourth President. That was when it hit me the hardest. We'd started so far outside of it-so far from power and visibility. But here we were.

The first show I played when I got to Was.h.i.+ngton, two days before the inauguration, was a little different from the official inaugural events I played, where I was keeping it presidential. It was at Club Love and I was dropping in on Jeezy's set to do the remix version of "My President Is Black." It was a real hip-hop show-stage crowded with n.i.g.g.as facing a hot, crowded club. It was the kind of show I've been doing since I was running with Kane. The spirit was familiar, too-the crowd was rocking to the music, arms in the air, getting the rush from being so close to the performers, so close to one another. But it was also different. There were people waving small American flags back at me. And onstage, we were all smiling. Grinning. We couldn't control it. Jeezy had the funniest line of the night: "I know we're thanking a lot of people...I want to thank two people: I want to thank the motherf.u.c.ker overseas who threw two shoes at George Bush. And I want to thank the motherf.u.c.kers who helped him move his s.h.i.+t up out the White House."

Those lines-in fact, the whole performance, which someone posted up on the Internet-would get twisted and cause a little stir among the right-wing media in the days that followed, which only validated my initial decision to lay low during the campaign. But it was over now and we'd won; f.u.c.k it-it was a celebration. We all had chills.

I remembered when I was still campaigning that fall, doing shows all over for voter registration. At one show in Virginia I was closing out my set and looked out at the audience, full of young black kids, laughing and hopeful. I tried to focus on the individual faces in that crowd, tried to find their eyes. That's why I wanted Barack to win, so those kids could see themselves differently, could see their futures differently than I did when I was a kid in Brooklyn and my eyes were focused on a narrower set of possibilities. People think there's no real distinction between the political parties, and in a lot of ways they're right. America still has a tremendous amount of distance to cover before it's a place that's true to its own values, let alone to deeper human values. Since he's been elected there have been a lot of legitimate criticisms of Obama.

But if he'd lost, it would've been an unbelievable tragedy-to feel so close to transformation and then to get sucked back in to the same old story and watch another generation grow up feeling like strangers in their own country, their culture maligned, their voices squashed. Instead, even with all the distance yet to go, for the fi rst time I felt like we were at least moving in the right direction, away from the shadows.

There are no white people in Marcy Projects. Bed-Stuy today has been somewhat gentrified, but the projects are like gentrification firewalls. When I was growing up there, it was strictly blacks and Puerto Ricans, maybe some Dominicans, rough Arabs who ran the twenty-four-hour bodegas, pockets of Hasidim who kept to themselves, and the Chinese dudes who stayed behind bullet-proof gla.s.s at the corner take-out joint. They supposedly sold Chinese food, but most people went there for the fried wings with duck sauce and the supersweet iced tea.

When I started working in Trenton we would see white people sometimes. There were definitely white crackheads; desperate white people weren't any more immune to it than desperate black or Latino people. They'd leave their neighborhoods and come to ours to buy it. You could tell they were looking for crack because they'd slow down as they drove through the hood instead of speeding up. Sometimes they'd hang around to smoke it up. Make some new friends. But the truth is that in most neighborhoods, the local residents were the main customers. And the local residents tended to be black, maybe Latino.

That didn't mean that white people were a mystery to me. If you're an American, you're surrounded on all sides by images of white people in popular culture. If anything, some black people can become poisoned by it and start hating themselves. A lot of us suffered from it-wanting to be light-skinned with curly hair. I never thought twice about trying to look white, but in little ways I was being poisoned, too, for example, in unconsciously accepting the common wisdom that light-skinned girls were the prettiest-all wavy light-skinned girls is lovin me now. It was sick. It was sick.

CHECK OUT MY HAIR, THESE AIN'T CURLS THESE IS PEAS Hip-hop has always been a powerful force in changing the way people think about race, for better and worse. First it changed the way black people-especially black boys and men-thought about themselves. When I was a young teenager, the top black pop stars were Michael Jackson and Prince, two musical geniuses who f.u.c.ked up a lot of black people in the head because of how deliberately they seemed to be running away from looking like black people. Their hair was silky straight, their skin was light, and in Michael's case, getting lighter by the day. We didn't know s.h.i.+t about vitiligo or whatever he had back then; we just saw the big, bouncy afro turn into a doobie and the black boy we loved turn white. But aside from Michael and Prince, who were so special that you could just chalk it up to their mad genius, we were getting hit with a stream of singers who weren't exactly flying the flag of blackness. The Debarges and Apollonias and constant flow of Jheri curls. Male singers were taking the ba.s.s and texture out of their voices, trying to cross over and get some of that Lionel Richie money. It wasn't their fault-and there was some good music that came out of that moment (shout-out to Al B. Sure!). But it wasn't exactly affirming.

Until hip-hop came along. Run-DMC said it in one of their early songs, "Rock Box": I never, ever wore a braid/got the peasiest hair and still get paid. I never, ever wore a braid/got the peasiest hair and still get paid. Public Enemy made it even clearer: Public Enemy made it even clearer: I'm black and I'm proud/I'm ready, I'm hyped, plus I'm amped. I'm black and I'm proud/I'm ready, I'm hyped, plus I'm amped. Even the Jheri curl came back hard with hip-hop: Ice Cube did Amerikkka's Most Wanted, one of the hardest alb.u.ms of all time, with a curl dripping down his neck. He turned it from a symbol of self-hatred to the uniform of a black man at the bottom, which is really what it had become. (He still cut that s.h.i.+t off by the time his next alb.u.m came around.) MCs were taking it back to the images from our childhoods-the blaxploitation heroes, the black power activists, the black aesthetic movement of the 1970s. Even the Jheri curl came back hard with hip-hop: Ice Cube did Amerikkka's Most Wanted, one of the hardest alb.u.ms of all time, with a curl dripping down his neck. He turned it from a symbol of self-hatred to the uniform of a black man at the bottom, which is really what it had become. (He still cut that s.h.i.+t off by the time his next alb.u.m came around.) MCs were taking it back to the images from our childhoods-the blaxploitation heroes, the black power activists, the black aesthetic movement of the 1970s.

I was never on that nationalist tip as an MC, but MCs I looked up to, like Rakim, Kane, and Cube, whatever their politics, were unambiguously black, with no concession to any other standard of appearance. They didn't hate themselves. They knew how to be strong and stylish but stay black in a way that wasn't self-conscious or contrived. Just by being true to who they were, they obliterated the ideal of the light-skinned singer with the S-curl, which, for a lot of kids of my generation, took the edge off the kind of color consciousness that's always lurking for black people in America. Even when hip-hop aired some of the ongoing colorism among black people-like Biggie rapping that he was black and ugly as ever-the point is that we were airing it out, not sweeping it under the rug and letting it drive us crazy trying to pretend it didn't exist. Just one more way that hip-hop kept us sane.

THE WHITE BOY BLOSSOMED.

In 2008 I headlined at another big rock festival, the All Points West show in New York. Unlike Glas...o...b..ry, there wasn't any real controversy. I wasn't even supposed to be on the bill. I was filling in at the last minute for the original headliners, the Beastie Boys, because Ad Rock, one of the Boys, had to drop out for cancer treatments. In their honor, I opened my show with a cover of their cla.s.sic Brooklyn anthem, "No Sleep Till Brooklyn." The crowd-which was standing in inches of mud after a torrential rain earlier in the day-was electrified and maybe a little surprised.

I'd known the Beastie Boys for a while-we had a lot in common. We were all from New York and had a strong connection to the legendary Def Jam label. They were its bestselling act in the early years and I spent three years as its CEO. We'd both worked closely with Rick Rubin-Rick produced their first alb.u.m, Licensed To Ill; he produced "99 Problems" for me on The Black Alb.u.m (in fact, Mike D of the Beasties was in the studio for that recording session).

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But before I ever met them, I listened to their music. They were a different sort of group from the other acts of the mid-1980s, hip-hop's first golden age. They started off as a hardcore band in the New York punk scene.

Back then punk mixed easily with hip-hop, and Rick and Russell were like mad scientists, mixing elements of big-beat hip-hop with the crunching guitars of heavy metal. That was an element in the sound of a lot their first big acts, like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and even some Public Enemy. But when these three Jewish boys from New York worked it, they became the biggest act in America.

The evolution of the Beastie Boys has been very strange to watch. I remember first seeing their bootleg little videos for early songs like "She's on It" on the local New York video shows: They wandered up and down the beach in Coney Island like a trio of sloppy, drunken punks, while a gaggle of Brooklyn girls in bikinis did the cla.s.sic white-girl bop. The music was grinding guitars and the flow was extremely elementary with long pauses: there's no confusion/in her conclusion. It had the kind of smirking, smart-a.s.s style that was very New York and very punk rock, but it also had girls in bikinis and Led Zeppelin riffs that any American boy could get behind. When they started working with Rick Rubin, they perfected that formula.

Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained. Black people never had to debase themselves in hip-hop. A lot have, but it was never obligatory. In fact, the most successful alb.u.ms from black artists have come from artists who are among the most culturally and politically conscious, whether it's Lauryn and the Fugees or Outkast or Tupac or Public Enemy. And the white acts who were the biggest-Eminem and the Beasties, for example-largely came with respect for the culture and its roots. Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK.

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[Intro] And out of the mercy of Allah and the lord written in our nature/ We call an individual into existence and when that individual comes/ I make no apologies for what I'm about to do I make no apologies for what I'm about to do1/ [Jay-Z] I'm America's worst nightmare/ I'm young black and holding my nuts like shh-yeah/ Y'all was in the pub having a light beer/ I was in the club having a fight there I was in the club having a fight there2/ Y'all can go home/ Husband and wife there/ My momma at work trying to buy me the right gear My momma at work trying to buy me the right gear3/ Nine years old uncle lost his life there/ Grew up thinking life ain't fair/ How can I get a real job/ China white right there/ Right in front of my sight like here, yeah Right in front of my sight like here, yeah4/ There's your ticket out the ghetto/ Take flight right here/ Sell me, you go bye-bye here yeah Sell me, you go bye-bye here yeah5/ d.a.m.n there's a different set of rules we abide by here/ You need a gun n.i.g.g.as might drive by here/ You're having fun racing all your hot rods there/ Downloading all our music on your iPods there/ I'm Chuck D standing in the crosshairs here I'm Chuck D standing in the crosshairs here6/ Y'all straight, chicks got horsehair here7/ You ain't gotta be in fear of your bosses there/ Y'all lose your job, your pop's rich, y'all don't care Y'all lose your job, your pop's rich, y'all don't care8/ So I don't care, y'all acting like y'all don't hear/ Hear all the screams from the ghetto all the teens ducking metal here Hear all the screams from the ghetto all the teens ducking metal here9/ Trying to take they mind to a whole different level here / Yeah, we're real close to the devil here Yeah, we're real close to the devil here10/ There gotta be a better way. Somebody call the reverend here/ Yeah, y'all must really be in Heaven there/ Somebody tell G.o.d that we got a couple questions here/ My little cuz never got to see his seventh year My little cuz never got to see his seventh year11/ And I'm so used to pain that I ain't even shed a tear

h.e.l.l YEAH (PIMP THE SYSTEM) / DEAD PREZ,1 FEATURING JAY-Z FEATURING JAY-Z.

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I'm a Fan of Clear Ideas. (1:49) [Jay-Z] As long as there's drugs to be sold / I ain't waiting for the system to plug up these holes / I ain't slipping through the cracks I ain't slipping through the cracks2 / / So I'm at Portland, Oregon tryin to slip you these raps / So I'm at Portland, Oregon tryin to slip you these raps / The first black in the suburbs The first black in the suburbs3 / You'd think I had Ecstasy, Percocet, and plus syrup / / You'd think I had Ecstasy, Percocet, and plus syrup / The way the cops converged, The way the cops converged,4 they f.u.c.ked up my swerve / The first young buck that I served / I thought back to the block / I never seen a cop when I was out there / They never came out there / they f.u.c.ked up my swerve / The first young buck that I served / I thought back to the block / I never seen a cop when I was out there / They never came out there / And out there, I was slingin crack to live And out there, I was slingin crack to live5 / I'm only slingin raps to your kids / I'm only tryin to show you how black n.i.g.g.az live / But you don't want your little ones acting like this / Lil Amy told Becky, Becky told Jenny / / I'm only slingin raps to your kids / I'm only tryin to show you how black n.i.g.g.az live / But you don't want your little ones acting like this / Lil Amy told Becky, Becky told Jenny / And now they all know the skinny And now they all know the skinny6 / Lil Joey got his do-rag on / / Lil Joey got his do-rag on / Driving down the street blasting Tupac's song (Thug Life baby!) Driving down the street blasting Tupac's song (Thug Life baby!)7 / But Billy like Snoop, got his blue rag on / / But Billy like Snoop, got his blue rag on / Now before you know it, you back in 'Nam Now before you know it, you back in 'Nam8 / Now the police got me in the middle of the street / Trying to beat me blue, black and orange / I'm like hold up, who you smacking on? / / Now the police got me in the middle of the street / Trying to beat me blue, black and orange / I'm like hold up, who you smacking on? / I'm only trying to eat what you snacking on I'm only trying to eat what you snacking on9 / [ / [Chorus: Jay-Z] / / h.e.l.l yeah (y'all don't like that do you?) / h.e.l.l yeah (you f.u.c.ked up the hood n.i.g.g.a right back to you) / h.e.l.l yeah (you know we tired of starving my n.i.g.g.a) / h.e.l.l yeah (let's ride) h.e.l.l yeahhh (let's ride) / [ h.e.l.l yeah (y'all don't like that do you?) / h.e.l.l yeah (you f.u.c.ked up the hood n.i.g.g.a right back to you) / h.e.l.l yeah (you know we tired of starving my n.i.g.g.a) / h.e.l.l yeah (let's ride) h.e.l.l yeahhh (let's ride) / [Bridge with Jay-Z ad-libs] / / If you claiming gangsta / Then bang on the system / And show that you ready to ride / Till we get our freedom / We got to get over / We steady on the grind If you claiming gangsta / Then bang on the system / And show that you ready to ride / Till we get our freedom / We got to get over / We steady on the grind I've never been good at sitting still, and even when I'm sitting still, my mind is racing. I've built my life around my own restlessness in a lot of ways. School was always easy for me; I never once remember feeling challenged. I have a photographic memory, so if I glanced at something once, I could recall it for a test. I was reading on a twelfth-grade level in the sixth, I could do math in my head, but I had no interest in sitting in a cla.s.sroom all day. When I was hustling, I wasn't the kid who worked his home corner, in eyeshot of his own bedroom window. I stayed on the road.

I love New York more than probably anything else in the world, but I'm thankful that I got away at a young age to see some of the world outside of Marcy. It opened my perspective on a lot of things, including my taste in music. People in other parts of the country think New Yorkers are sn.o.bs about hip-hop and defensive about their position as the birthplace of the art. That's unfair, but being outside of the city so much definitely helped me avoid having any kind of narrow sense of what rap music could sound like.

For instance, the famous East CoastWest Coast beef in hip-hop in the 1990s was based on a lot of things: personal animosities, unsolved shootings, disrespect at awards shows, women, and other a.s.sorted bulls.h.i.+t. But as far as I was concerned, one thing it wasn't about was the quality of the music. I was spending a lot of time in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., and Maryland when West Coast hip-hop, led by NWA and then Cube, Dre, and Snoop, started to sweep the entire country. I was a Brooklyn MC to the bone-I wasn't trying to pretend otherwise. But I also got why people loved NWA. I started listening to all kinds of rappers from all over the country, including the Southern rappers and West Coast MCs like Too Short, whose lazy-seeming flows were the opposite of my fast-rapping style at the time and completely contrary to what most New York MCs were doing. I loved the variety that was developing outside of the world of New York hip-hop and absorbed elements of all of it, which helped me enrich my own style.

When you step outside of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relations.h.i.+p to information. I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it in my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around, restless, making connections, mixing and matching ideas, rather than marching in a straight line. That's why I'm always stressing focus. My thoughts chase each other from room to room in my head if I let them, so sometimes I have to slow myself down. I've never been one to write perfect little short stories in my rhymes, like some other MCs. It's not out of a sense of preference, just that the rhymes come to me in a different way, as a series of connecting verbal ideas, rather than full-fledged stories.

But that's a good match for the way I've always approached life. I've always believed in motion and action, in following connections wherever they take me, and in not getting entrenched. My life has been more poetry than prose, more about unpredictable leaps and links than simple steady movement, or worse, stagnation. It's allowed me to stay open to the next thing without feeling held back by a preconceived notion of what I'm supposed to be doing next. Stories have ups and downs and moments of development followed by moments of climax; the storyteller has to keep it all together, which is an incredible skill. But poetry is all climax, every word and line pops with the same energy as the whole; even the s.p.a.ces between the words can feel charged with potential energy. It fits my style to rhyme with high stakes riding on every word and to fill every pause with pressure and possibility. And maybe I just have ADD, but I also like my rhymes to stay loose enough to follow whatever ideas hijack my train of thought, just like I like my mind to stay loose enough to absorb everything around me.

YOU WANT WAR THEN IT'S WAR'S GONNA BE I was in a London club when I first heard Panjabi MC's "Mundian To Bach Ke." It wasn't like anything else playing. The ba.s.s line was propulsive and familiar, but it took me a second to realize it was from the theme song of Knight Rider, Knight Rider, a ba.s.s line Busta Rhymes had also recently used. On top of the crazy, driving ba.s.s line were fluttering drums and this urgent, high-pitched, rhythmic strumming, which came, as it turns out, from a tumbi, a traditional South Asian instrument. I didn't know all that when I heard it in the club. All I knew was it was something totally fresh. It felt like world music in the best sense, like a bunch of sounds from different parts of the globe joined up like an all-star team. People in the club heard it and went crazy. I did, too. a ba.s.s line Busta Rhymes had also recently used. On top of the crazy, driving ba.s.s line were fluttering drums and this urgent, high-pitched, rhythmic strumming, which came, as it turns out, from a tumbi, a traditional South Asian instrument. I didn't know all that when I heard it in the club. All I knew was it was something totally fresh. It felt like world music in the best sense, like a bunch of sounds from different parts of the globe joined up like an all-star team. People in the club heard it and went crazy. I did, too.

I tracked down the artist and called the next day to see if I could do a remix of the song. It was 2003, early in the Iraq invasion, early enough that people in America still mostly supported the war. Bush had flown onto the aircraft carrier with the big MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner and people were thinking it was an easy win for Team America. But I'd been traveling all over the world and knew that there was a different perception outside of the United States. Whatever sympathy we had after 9/11 was vanis.h.i.+ng. I was able to pick up on some of the arguments that weren't being made on American television. I was one of the people who thought 9/11 was an opportunity to rethink our character as a nation. With the war in Iraq it felt like we were squandering a window of goodwill. It wasn't just that it was a war; as Barack Obama said, it was clearly a dumb war.

When I started working on my remix of "Mundian To Bach Ke"-we called it "Beware of the Boys," which was the Punjabi t.i.tle translated into English-I wanted to make it a party song, which was the mind-set I was in when I first heard it. But the international feeling of the track-which some people thought was Arabic-moved me into a different direction. So I dropped in a line against the Iraq War. That got me thinking about the recent history of America in the Middle East, so I added something about the Iran-Contra scandal in the eighties-which brought me back to that whole era of big drug kingpins and my own life back then, copping and selling just like Ollie North. I compared Osama Bin Laden to Ronald Reagan in their indifference to the destruction each of them brought to the city I lived in.

I was wading into deeper waters with every connection. So I stopped myself and took it back to the club: But for now mami turn it around and let your boy play.

BEWARE (JAY-Z REMIX).

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As soon as the beat drop / We got the streets locked / Overseas at Panjabi MC and the ROC / I came to see the mamis in the spot / On the count of three, drop your body like its hot / One Young / Two you / Want to, three / Young Hov's a snake charmer / Move your body lika snake mama / Make me wanna put tha snake on ya Make me wanna put tha snake on ya1 / I'm on my 8th summer / / I'm on my 8th summer / still hot still hot / / Young's the 8th wonder Young's the 8th wonder / / All I do is get bread All I do is get bread2 / Yeah, I take wonder / I take one of ya chics straight from under ya arm pit / The black Brad Pitt / I mack till 6 in the AM / / Yeah, I take wonder / I take one of ya chics straight from under ya arm pit / The black Brad Pitt / I mack till 6 in the AM / All day I'm P-I-M-P All day I'm P-I-M-P3 / I am simply / / I am simply / Attached to tha track Attached to tha track4 like SMPTE like SMPTE5 / It's sinfully good young Hov infinitely hood / [ / It's sinfully good young Hov infinitely hood / [Chorus] / / R.O.C. and ya don't stop / Panjabi MC and ya don't stop / n.i.g.g.a NYC and ya don't stop / It's the ROC, it's the ROC / R.O.C. and we don't stop / Panjabi MC and we don't stop / It's your boy Jay-Z and we don't stop / n.i.g.g.a, ROC and we won't stop / Ma, I ain't gotta tell ya / But it's your boy Hov from the U.S. / R.O.C. and ya don't stop / Panjabi MC and ya don't stop / n.i.g.g.a NYC and ya don't stop / It's the ROC, it's the ROC / R.O.C. and we don't stop / Panjabi MC and we don't stop / It's your boy Jay-Z and we don't stop / n.i.g.g.a, ROC and we won't stop / Ma, I ain't gotta tell ya / But it's your boy Hov from the U.S. / You just lay down slow You just lay down slow6 / Catch your boy mingling in England meddling in the Netherlands / Checkin in daily under aliases / We rebellious we back home / screamin leave Iraq alone / But all my soldiers in the field / / Catch your boy mingling in England meddling in the Netherlands / Checkin in daily under aliases / We rebellious we back home / screamin leave Iraq alone / But all my soldiers in the field / I will wish you safe return I will wish you safe return7 / / But only love kills war, when will they learn? But only love kills war, when will they learn?8 / It's international Hov, been havin the flow / Before bin Laden got Manhattan to blow, / / It's international Hov, been havin the flow / Before bin Laden got Manhattan to blow, / Before Ronald Reagan got Manhattan to blow, Before Ronald Reagan got Manhattan to blow,9 / Before I was cabbin it there back before / raw we had it all day, Papi in the hallway, cop one on consignment / to give you more yay / Yeah, but that's another story / / Before I was cabbin it there back before / raw we had it all day, Papi in the hallway, cop one on consignment / to give you more yay / Yeah, but that's another story / But for now, mami, But for now, mami,10 turn it around and let the boy play. turn it around and let the boy play.

BLUE MAGIC / FEATURING PHARRELL.

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Roc-A-Fella records / The imperial Skateboard P / Great Hova / Y'all already know what it is (Oh s.h.i.+t!) / C'mon! / Yeah / So what if you flip a couple words / I could triple that in birds / open your mind you see the circus in the sky / I'm Ringling brothers Barnum and Bailey with the pies I'm Ringling brothers Barnum and Bailey with the pies1 / No matter how you slice it I'm your motherf.u.c.king guy / Just like a b-boy with 360 waves / / No matter how you slice it I'm your motherf.u.c.king guy / Just like a b-boy with 360 waves / Do the same with the pot, still come back beige Do the same with the pot, still come back beige2 / Whether right or south paw, whether powdered or jar / Whip it around, it still comes back hard. / So easily do I w-h-i-p / / Whether right or south paw, whether powdered or jar / Whip it around, it still comes back hard. / So easily do I w-h-i-p / My repet.i.tion with wrists will bring you kilo b.i.t.c.hes My repet.i.tion with wrists will bring you kilo b.i.t.c.hes3 / I got creole C.O. b.i.t.c.hes for my n.i.g.g.as who slipped, became prisoners / Treats taped to the visitors / You already know what the business is / / I got creole C.O. b.i.t.c.hes for my n.i.g.g.as who slipped, became prisoners / Treats taped to the visitors / You already know what the business is / Unnecessary commissary, Unnecessary commissary,4 boy we live this s.h.i.+t / n.i.g.g.as wanna bring the eighties back / boy we live this s.h.i.+t / n.i.g.g.as wanna bring the eighties back / It's OK with me, that's where they made me at It's OK with me, that's where they made me at5 / Except I don't write on the wall / / Except I don't write on the wall / I write my name in the history books, hustling in the hall (hustling in the hall) I write my name in the history books, hustling in the hall (hustling in the hall)6 / Nah, I don't spin on my head / I spin work in the pots so I can spend my bread / [ / Nah, I don't spin on my head / I spin work in the pots so I can spend my bread / [Chorus: Pharrell] And I'm getting it, I'm getting it / I ain't talking about it, I'm living it / I'm getting it, straight getting it / Ge-ge-ge-get get get it boy / [Jay-Z] (Don't waste you time fighting the life stay your course, and you'll understand) (Don't waste you time fighting the life stay your course, and you'll understand)7 / Get it boy / It's '87 state of mind that I'm in (mind that I'm in) / / Get it boy / It's '87 state of mind that I'm in (mind that I'm in) / In my prime, so for that time, I'm Rakim (I'm Rakim) In my prime, so for that time, I'm Rakim (I'm Rakim)8 / If it wasn't for the crime that I was in / But I wouldn't be the guy whose rhymes it is that I'm in (that I'm in) / No pain, no profit, P I repeat if you show me where the pot is (pot is) / Cherry M3s with the top back (top back) / Red and green G's all on my hat / North beach leathers, matching Gucci sweater / Gucci sneaks on to keep my outfit together / Whatever, hundred for the diamond chain / Can't you tell that I came from the dope game / Blame Reagan for making me into a monster / Blame Oliver North and Iran-Contra / I ran contraband that they sponsored / / If it wasn't for the crime that I was in / But I wouldn't be the guy whose rhymes it is that I'm in (that I'm in) / No pain, no profit, P I repeat if you show me where the pot is (pot is) / Cherry M3s with the top back (top back) / Red and green G's all on my hat / North beach leathers, matching Gucci sweater / Gucci sneaks on to keep my outfit together / Whatever, hundred for the diamond chain / Can't you tell that I came from the dope game / Blame Reagan for making me into a monster / Blame Oliver North and Iran-Contra / I ran contraband that they sponsored / Before this rhyming stuff we was in concert Before this rhyming stuff we was in concert9 / [ / [Chorus: Pharrell] Push (push) money over broads, you got it, f.u.c.k Bush Push (push) money over broads, you got it, f.u.c.k Bush10 / Chef (chef), guess what I cooked / Baked a lot of bread and kept it off the books / Rockstar, look, way before the bars my picture was getting took / / Chef (chef), guess what I cooked / Baked a lot of bread and kept it off the books / Rockstar, look, way before the bars my picture was getting took / Feds, they like wack rappers, try as they may, couldn't get me on the hook Feds, they like wack rappers, try as they may, couldn't get me on the hook11 / D.A. wanna indict me / Cause fishscales in my veins like a pisces / The Pyrex pot, rolled up my sleeves / Turn one into two like a Siamese / / D.A. wanna indict me / Cause fishscales in my veins like a pisces / The Pyrex pot, rolled up my sleeves / Turn one into two like a Siamese / Twin when it end, I'ma stand as a man never dying on my knees Twin when it end, I'ma stand as a man never dying on my knees12 / Last of a dying breed, so let the champagne pop / I partied for a while now I'm back to the block / Last of a dying breed, so let the champagne pop / I partied for a while now I'm back to the block[image]

My father was crazy for detail. I get that from him. Even though we didn't live together after I was nine, there are some things he instilled in me early that I never lost. He'd walk my cousin B-High and me through Times Square-this is when it was still known as Forty Deuce-and we'd people watch. Back then, Times Square was crazy grimy. Pimps, prost.i.tutes, dealers, addicts, gangs, all the s.h.i.+t from the seventies that other people saw in blaxploitation flicks, Manhattan had in living color. Kids from Harlem and h.e.l.l's Kitchen used Times Square as their backyard-they'd be out there deep, running in and out of karate flicks, breakdancing-but for Brooklyn kids, like me and B-High, midtown Manhattan might as well have been a plane ride away.

My father would take us to Lindy's and we'd get these big-a.s.s steak fries. We would sit in the restaurant looking out the window onto the streets, and play games that exercised our observational skills. Like my pops would make us guess a woman's dress size. There was nothing he missed about a person. He was really good about taking in all the nonverbal clues people give you to their character, how to listen to the matrix of a conversation, to what a person doesn't say.

For my pops it was just as important to take in places as people. He wanted me to know my own neighborhood inside out. When we'd go to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins my father would give me the responsibility of leading, even though I was the youngest. When I was walking with him, he always walked real fast (he said that way if someone's following you, they'll lose you) and he expected me to not only keep up with him but to remember the details of the things I was pa.s.sing. I had to know which bodega sold laundry detergent and who only stocked candy and chips, which bodega was owned by Puerto Ricans and which one was run by Arabs, who taped pictures of themselves holding AKs to the Plexiglas where they kept the loose candy.

He was teaching me to be confident and aware of my surroundings. There's no better survival skill you could teach a boy in the ghetto, and he did it demonstratively, not by sitting me down and saying, "Yo, always look around at where you are," but by showing me. Without necessarily meaning to, he taught me how to be an artist.

I GIVE YOU THE NEWS WITH A TWIST, IT'S JUST HIS GHETTO POINT OF VIEW [image]

That same kind of close observation is at the heart of rap. Great rappers from the earliest days distinguished themselves by looking closely at the world around them and describing it in a clever, artful way. And then they went further than just describing it. They started commenting on it in a critical way. Rap's first great subjects were ego-tripping and partying, but before long it turned into a tool for social commentary.

It was kind of a natural move, really. The 1970s were a time when black art in general was being used as a tool for social change, whether it was in the poetry of people like the Last Poets or in the R&B of Marvin Gaye or Donny Hathaway or in movies like Shaft. Shaft. And politics had a real cultural angle, too. The Black Panthers weren't just about revolution and Marxism, they were also about changing style and language. Jesse Jackson recited poems like "I Am Somebody" to schoolchildren of my generation. Art and politics and culture were all mixed up together. So it was almost obligatory that any popular art include some kind of political message. Some early rap was explicitly political, like Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation movement. But other rappers played it safe and nonspecific: They'd throw in a line about peace, or supporting your brotherman, or staying in school, or whatever. It took a while before rappers as a whole really sharpened their commentary, but, again, it was hard not to-there was so much to comment about if your eyes were open to what was going on around you. And politics had a real cultural angle, too. The Black Panthers weren't just about revolution and Marxism, they were also about changing style and language. Jesse Jackson recited poems like "I Am Somebody" to schoolchildren of my generation. Art and politics and culture were all mixed up together. So it was almost obligatory that any popular art include some kind of political message. Some early rap was explicitly political, like Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation movement. But other rappers played it safe and nonspecific: They'd throw in a line about peace, or supporting your brotherman, or staying in school, or whatever. It took a while before rappers as a whole really sharpened their commentary, but, again, it was hard not to-there was so much to comment about if your eyes were open to what was going on around you.

There was the general squalor of the ghetto, which got aired out in early songs like Run-DMC's first hit, "It's Like That," or "The Message" by Melle Mel. But over time, rappers started really going in on specific issues. Crooked cops were attacked by groups like NWA. Drug dealers were targeted by KRS-One. Drug addicts were mocked by Brand Nubian. Ice Cube called out Uncle Toms. Groups like Poor Righteous Teachers denounced shady churches with bootleg preachers. Queen Latifah was pus.h.i.+ng back against misogyny. Salt 'N' Pepa were rallying around safe s.e.x. Public Enemy recorded manifestos on their alb.u.ms addressing a dozen different issues. You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

The hip-hop generation never gets credit for it, but those songs changed things in the hood. They were political commentary, but they weren't based on theory or books. They were based on reality, on close observation of the world we grew up in. The songs weren't moralistic, but they created a stigma around certain kinds of behavior, just by describing them truthfully and with clarity. One of the things we corrected was the absent-father karma our fathers' generation's created. We made it some real b.i.t.c.h s.h.i.+t to bounce on your kids. Whether it was Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs with "Be a Father to Your Child," or Big mixing rage with double entendre (pop duke left ma duke, the f.a.ggot took the back way), we as a generation made it shameful to not be there for your kids.

I'M TALKING BOUT REAL s.h.i.+T, THEM PEOPLE'S PLAYIN'

Artists of all kinds have a platform and, if they're any good, have a clearer vision of what's going on in the world around them. In my career I've never set out to make songs that function as public service announcements (not even the song "Public Service Announcement") with a few exceptions, one of which is the song "Meet the Parents." But in honoring the lesson of my father-to pay attention-and the lesson of hip-hop-which is to tell the truth-I've been able to create my own kind of social commentary. Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.

THIS LIFE FOREVER1.

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I ride through the ghetto windows down halfway2 / Halfway out of my mind music on 9, blasting / Halfway out of my mind music on 9, blasting Donny Hathaway Donny Hathaway3 / Me and my n.i.g.g.as spending half the day / Plotting, how we gon get this math today without getting blast away / I wake up to the same problems after today / / Me and my n.i.g.g.as spending half the day / Plotting, how we gon get this math today without getting blast away / I wake up to the same problems after today / Life is harsh, n.i.g.g.as gotta right to spark Life is harsh, n.i.g.g.as gotta right to spark4 / Right from the start they place me in the ghetto tender age of nine / my tender mind had to surrender to crime / Wouldn't wish this on n.o.body life to end up like mine / Ever since I was quite young a n.i.g.g.a been in a bind / Had to scratch for every plaque, even rap aint even all it's cracked up to be / n.i.g.g.as dont stack up to me / Had to hustle in a world of trouble / / Right from the start they place me in the ghetto tender age of nine / my tender mind had to surrender to crime / Wouldn't wish this on n.o.body life to end up like mine / Ever since I was quite young a n.i.g.g.a been in a bind / Had to scratch for every plaque, even rap aint even all it's cracked up to be / n.i.g.g.as dont stack up to me / Had to hustle in a world of trouble / trapped in, claustrophobic the only way out was rapping trapped in, claustrophobic the only way out was rapping5 / / America don't understand it, the demographics I tapped in America don't understand it, the demographics I tapped in6 / I'm the truest n.i.g.g.a to do this n.i.g.g.a and anything else is foolish / Like those who stay high, under G.o.d's gray skies / My lyrics is like the Bible, made to save lives / In the midst of all your misery n.i.g.g.a, stay fly / Never let em see you frown, even smile when you down / s.h.i.+t, I floss on my off days, f.u.c.k what they all say / n.i.g.g.as cant stop me with rumors, I'm too strong / / I'm the truest n.i.g.g.a to do this n.i.g.g.a and anything else is foolish / Like those who stay high, under G.o.d's gray skies / My lyrics is like the Bible, made to save lives / In the midst of all your misery n.i.g.g.a, stay fly / Never let em see you frown, even smile when you down / s.h.i.+t, I floss on my off days, f.u.c.k what they all say / n.i.g.g.as cant stop me with rumors, I'm too strong / All day All day7 / / Socks explode and sweatpants pockets is bulging Socks explode and sweatpants pockets is bulging8 / Holding it down on the corner with my block frozen / My spot is rollin, drop the price of the c.o.ke and / Drove the compet.i.tion out and let the dough flow in / The cops is closing in, I can do the time / But what's really on my mind aint no hoes in the pen / I play the low and try and make it hard to find me / Feds still tryna build a case since '93 / I told them, I'm retired but they like whatever / / Holding it down on the corner with my block frozen / My spot is rollin, drop the price of the c.o.ke and / Drove the compet.i.tion out and let the dough flow in / The cops is closing in, I can do the time / But what's really on my mind aint no hoes in the pen / I play the low and try and make it hard to find me / Feds still tryna build a case since '93 / I told them, I'm retired but they like whatever / You know them pigs don't wanna see you get your life together You know them pigs don't wanna see you get your life together9 / I'm stuck in this life forever / The more things change the more they stay the same / Who am I to change the game? / You gotta move quick like her-o-in and cocaine / The block's hotter than it's ever been / Once again / Hold the gun at eye level, I ain't afraid of conflict / I let the nine rip, n.i.g.g.a say "hi" to the devil / I blind with the bezel, / I'm stuck in this life forever / The more things change the more they stay the same / Who am I to change the game? / You gotta move quick like her-o-in and cocaine / The block's hotter than it's ever been / Once again / Hold the gun at eye level, I ain't afraid of conflict / I let the nine rip, n.i.g.g.a say "hi" to the devil / I blind with the bezel, I'm in line with the ghetto I'm in line with the ghetto10 / What y'all n.i.g.g.as afraid of my mind or the metal / n.i.g.g.as tryna subtract my life, my mathematics is precise / / What y'all n.i.g.g.as afraid of my mind or the metal / n.i.g.g.as tryna subtract my life, my mathematics is precise / I carry the nine, so f.u.c.king with me just ain't the answer I carry the nine, so f.u.c.king with me just ain't the answer11 / I just can't lose when I was young I was like Fresh / Poppa raised me with chess moves / / I just can't lose when I was young I was like Fresh / Poppa raised me with chess moves / And though you're gone I'm not bitter you left me prepared And though you're gone I'm not bitter you left me prepared12 / We got divided by the years, but I got it from here / Don't sweat that, sounds b.u.mp from Marcy to Lefrak / / We got divided by the years, but I got it from here / Don't sweat that, sounds b.u.mp from Marcy to Lefrak / To that pocket in DC where my man caught his death at To that pocket in DC where my man caught his death at13 / Over my years I've seen rooks get tooken by the knight / Lose they crown by tryna defend a queen / / Over my years I've seen rooks get tooken by the knight / Lose they crown by tryna defend a queen / Checkmate in four moves the Bobby Fischer of rap Checkmate in four moves the Bobby Fischer of rap14 / with raw moves in a time where we all move / Let's face it either you're dough chasin, or basing / Lacing, crack's gotcha feeling strong like Mason / Careful, any infiltration I'm leaving n.i.g.g.as / Leaking more than just informati