INTERVIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY COVER (JAY-Z)

It would probably be a cliché to state that Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is the opposite of the all-beef persona he proffers in song and video, but he is soft-spoken and polite. As he finishes his lunch at the Brooklyn studio where we did the photo shoot for this story, he asks for something to drink. “Snapple, I guess,” he says. “Bring me something red with that excess verbiage on the label. Although,” he laughs. “I guess that could be any of ’em.” He pays the kind of attention that’s reflected in his lyric choices.

Whenever he digressed during our conversation, he would invariably interject something along the lines of, “But let me get back to your original question . . . ” and then finish his thought—the kind of attention to detail that he brings to bear as a writer, producer, and performer with a career that, arguably, represents one of the longest running periods of sustained success in the history of hip-hop. It’s a genre that he’s seen grow from its infancy to reach a crossroads, mirroring his own evolution from his twenties to his forties. (Jay-Z turned 40 in December.) In those terms, these past couple of years have quite possibly been among the most fascinating of Jay-Z’s life: from being quoted in gesture by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, who brushed some metaphorical “dirt” off his shoulder while giving a speech during the primaries in 2008; to signing on with Will Smith as a producer of the Broadway musical Fela!, about legendarily political Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti; to posting an old-school Zeitgeist hit such as “Empire State of Mind” in an era when video or radio play is of waning influence.

It was logical then that last fall Jay-Z dropped an album with the pressure-cooker title of The Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation), as if to remind himself that the pop world still has enormous expectations of him, yet things have indeed changed. He also possesses an acute awareness of who he is and what he has accomplished. We began the conversation talking about movies. He acknowledged Quentin Tarantino as an influence: “Man, the way Tarantino went back and forth in time, that’s it. I love Pulp Fiction (1994). I name-checked it before, but it was a big influence on my writing. If you listen to ‘Meet the Parents,’ the way he uses time as an element is big in that song.” He allows that Chuck D was right when he called rap the CNN of black America, but for Jay-Z, there’s more. “Rap for me is like making movies, telling stories, and getting the emotions of the songs through in just as deep a way. And I grew up in rap and movies the same way. I recently watched Once Upon a Time in America (1984) on a plane. Back in the day, Noodles”—played by Robert De Niro— “was my man. But when he rapes that girl, I couldn’t sit through it anymore. You come to realize that actions have consequences.” He was touching on the way movies bring us into whatever the characters are feeling at the moment. When this was pointed out, he sat back and nodded. His gift for bringing the way people talk into the way he walks in song works on both conscious and unconscious levels, a reminder that even in his music, Jay-Z has never lost sight of who—or what—he is.

ELVIS MITCHELL: Would you have ever thought there would be a time where you could have a song like “Empire State of Mind” blow up the way it has, and, yet, there aren’t any record stores around any more? Isn’t it strange that we got to this point?

JAY-Z: It’s horrible. I mean, you didn’t foresee this specifically, but you knew something would happen because whenever people reject change, things change for them anyhow. I think that’s what happened to the record business when Napster came around. The industry rejected what was happening instead of accepting it as change. Here we are today, more than a decade later, and we still haven’t figured it out.

MITCHELL: Well, it still speaks to the power of music that something like “Empire State of Mind” can pop like that. There’s still an appetite for it.

JAY-Z: Well, I don’t think the appetite is the problem. I think the consumption of music is at an all-time high. But I think the ways that record companies are trying to monetize it is just all over the place. At the end of the day, music is in the clouds. That’s where it’s at now. Before, you could hold it, look at it, turn it around. Now, it’s just in the air. That’s where it’s gonna wind up. You won’t need a shelf or a wall unit like my mom and pop had with all these big-ass records. You’ll just need your phone to call it up.

MITCHELL: I’m sorry, I’ve gotta stop you here. You must hear this all the time, but whenever you say something that’s a phrase from one of your songs . . . When you said “all-time high,” I just went right to “Numb/Encore.” Does that kind of thing happen often?

JAY-Z: All the time. It’s good. . . . It’s weird and good.

MITCHELL: I think it has to do with how you fold certain phrases into your lyrics in the way that people talk.

JAY-Z: I think it comes from me trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way—taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.

The people who write the headlines at places like the New York Post do something similar. They turn these phrases that you know into hooks. Sometimes they’re clever. Sometimes they’re stupid, like TIGER’S TALE. [laughs] Actually, that was pretty clever. Rakimsaid, “I can take a phrase that’s rarely heard/Flip it/Now it’s a daily word” [from “Follow the Leader,” off Eric B. & Rakim’s 1988 album Follow the Leader]. That’s what I’m talking about.

MITCHELL: But having that power of understanding the way people speak obviously really means something to you.

JAY-Z: I started doing it on a small level, just for the people around me. Then I realized the impact it had, the connection it created with the millions of people who’ve been through the same thing that I’ve been through, or who can relate to my ambitions or emotions . . . You don’t have to be from Marcy projects to relate to the idea of, I’m not gonna lose. I’m gonna fight, and I’m gonna make something out of nothing. You know, that’s pretty much the American dream as it stands now. So, for me, the realization that I could speak to people like that came first on a small scale. Then it just started happening—I started having this vibration.

MITCHELL: You’ve always had a really good ear for things like that in your music, but one of your real gifts is that you can hear those sorts of things in other people’s music, too—like The Notorious B.I.G. or the Neptunes or Kanye West. That’s part of what makes you a great collaborator.

JAY-Z: I just really love the music. Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can’t. Other things can get in the way, whether it’s the boxes that people put themselves in, or the feelings they might have towards a person. But those things don’t get in the way for me. To me, there shouldn’t be any lines. All these ways we classify things as R&B and hip-hop and rock . . . It’s bullshit. It’s all music. If you put yourself in that box, then you won’t be able to hear that it’s all music at its soul. When people say stuff like, “Oh, that’s soft rock. I don’t listen to that,” I find that elitist. It’s music-racist. [laughs]

MITCHELL: That was one of the big parts of rap for a while. Not only were you not supposed to listen to other kinds of music, you weren’t supposed to listen to other MCs either.

JAY-Z: Yeah, but that was all bravado. That was all about, “I’m the best! No one else exists!” I pretty much forget all that in terms of collaborating. I really just like breaking down those barriers, whether it means doing an album with Linkin Park, an album with R. Kelly [The Best of Both Worlds, 2002], or playing at the Brandenburg Gate with Bono.

MITCHELL: Or doing a song like “Empire State of Mind” with Alicia Keys?

JAY-Z: Exactly.

MITCHELL: If you think about all the guys in hip-hop that you came up with, you’re one of the only ones who is still here—and part of the reason is that a lot of those guys didn’t break out of that box you’re talking about. In fact, most of them are still in it.

JAY-Z: I think a big part of that is insecurity. You know, successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all. You don’t have that fear. So why do you think people get stuck in those boxes? It’s that fear of going back down. “I had success. I had a number one record. I had a number one album. I have to make this kind of record again or else I’m going to lose it all.” So that’s how you end up making the same song over and over. People find their zone, a place that’s comfortable, and they say, “I’m not gonna try that other thing. What if I fail? Then I’ll have to go back! What if I can’t get in the club anymore?” [both laugh] It’s difficult for me as well. The Blueprint 3 was the most difficult album that I’ve ever made.

MITCHELL: Why is that?

JAY-Z: Well, what I was trying to do with this album—which is the same thing I was trying to do on Kingdom Come [2006]—is go somewhere that hadn’t been gone before, to try to chart a new territory in rap. The reason I’ve been grounded, though, and able to make albums, is because I’ve allowed my friends to come with me and voice an opinion. That’s who keeps you grounded—the people who have known you longest. People who don’t know you, you don’t know their motives. They smile at you all day, “Oh, that’s great. You’ve done it again! You’re the greatest!” And that’s not good for an artist. You’ve gotta keep the people that have been around you, who saw you when you didn’t have anything, so they have the confidence to say, “Get out of here. That shit is bullshit!” I welcome that.

MITCHELL: Just calling it The Blueprint 3 really throws down a challenge to yourself, doesn’t it?

JAY-Z: Right, of course. But I thought it was needed. I think this Blueprint is even bigger than the first one [The Blueprint, 2001] in terms of rap music in general. It shows that a guy who isn’t 16 years old can make relevant music. That’s a big thing in rap because it used to be that when guys got to be 30 years old, that was it because they had to try to rap like they were 18, and then the 18-year-olds were like, “We don’t even use that slang! That’s so last week! What are you talking about? You don’t even know what’s going on out here! You’re done!”

MITCHELL: That’s when you go do a sitcom.

JAY-Z: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Because you’re so disconnected. But if you’re a guy who loves to make rap music, then you have to do it, and those 18-year-olds are where the white-hot spot is, right? That’s what everyone says. That’s the demographic that you have to go for. But you don’t get to those kids by not being honest with yourself, because a separation develops between you and your music, and those kids don’t believe what you’re rapping about, so they don’t buy into it. That’s not something that’s honest to them. For me, the challenge is just making great albums, because talent—and writing in general—is not tangible. There’s no expiration date on it. At the same time, you might wake up tomorrow and be unable to write music. There’ve been genius artists who’ve been great for two years and then it’s gone. You just never know. So for me to put out my 11th studio album and have it connect the way it has still . . . I know it’s not Reasonable Doubt [1996]. It ain’t The Black Album [2003], either. It’s The Blueprint 3. It’s its own album, and it has connected with a lot of people.

MITCHELL: These albums are sort of like epics to you. Each song is like a scene, but there’s a context for each of them.

JAY-Z: Yeah. I mean, Blueprint 3 is made up of songs, but it’s also a commentary on the idea that in order for rap to survive, we have to stretch out the drama. We have to stretch out the audience. It can’t be this narrow—we have to stretch out the point of view. Because, as people grow, their points of view change as well, and so you start to lose people as they get older, just by nature of the fact that they don’t relate anymore to what you’re doing. Rap is fairly young, but it’s hitting this wall right now. It’s not this new thing anymore. Everyone’s heard it all before. So it’s like, “Okay, what are we going to talk about now? Where are you going to go with this?” It can’t just be about shock anymore. Before, it was all shock—“Motherfucker! Get it?” It was all this rebellious energy. Now, that’s not shocking anymore. We see the punch coming. So we’ve got to come up with something new. We gotta get on our game.

MITCHELL: Part of it, too, is that, in hip-hop, the audience generally moves from one person to the next, which is why it’s so amazing that you’ve been in the game for such a long time.

JAY-Z: Well, in rap years, I’m like The Rolling Stones or U2.

MITCHELL: The Grateful Dead.

JAY-Z: [laughs] The Grateful Dead, exactly!

MITCHELL: Were you conscious of bringing the audience along with you?

JAY-Z: Yeah, but I also never wanted to just make the same album that I made before. I am who I am as a person—I can’t change who I am.

MITCHELL: You probably don’t remember this, but we met four years ago at the Spotted Pig [the restaurant in New York City’s West Village of which Jay-Z is a co-owner]. It was the night that Bill Clinton was there. You and I were sitting outside having a cigar, actually, and you said, “Man, the world has changed. The president is talking to me about my music!” Do you remember that night?

JAY-Z: Yeah, man.

MITCHELL: I thought about that when Obama did the “dirt off my shoulder” moment. What’s it like for you to have basically two presidents who know how to deal with you?

JAY-Z: It’s unbelievable because it’s so far away from where I come from. We were the kids who were ignored by every politician. We didn’t have the numbers, the vote, to put anybody in office, because no matter who was in the office, we didn’t think that it would affect change where we lived. So nobody went out and voted. For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton . . . It’s crazy. It’s mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians—by America in general.

MITCHELL: But then you went from being ignored to being targeted. I mean, politicians actually went after rappers.

JAY-Z: Yeah. From being ignored, to being targeted, to being accepted.

MITCHELL: And you, as a rapper, have lived through all those eras. How has the game changed for you? You’ve changed as a person but, in a lot of ways, as you’ve grown, rap has become more of a marketing thing, and much more cynical.

For the rest of the interview, go to Interview