According to JAY-Z, people should tell the truth, whether they happen to be a multiplatinum-selling rap icon, a major-label president, or a drug dealer. He should know. Born Shawn Carter 36 years ago and raised in Brooklyn’s grim Marcy Projects, JAY-Z is the only person on the face of the planet with all three occupations on his résumé. ”In life, anything, just be yourself,” he says this August evening, largely ignoring the glass of cabernet beside him at the bar of Manhattan’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel. ”You don’t have to be like that in the record business. You can be conniving and nothing happens to you. But I can’t put up a front. On the street, you had to be a straight-up guy, you had to stand by your word. Because something could happen to you…”
Yes, JAY-Z is a man of his word. Except, it seems, when he isn’t. In 2002, the rapper declared that his next CD, The Black Album, would also be his last. His future lay not in the beats but in the boardroom. And that ambition became a reality when, in December 2004, he was announced as the new president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings. How to explain, then, the news that this fall JAY-Z will release a new CD, Kingdom Come? ”It was the worst retirement, maybe, in history,” he admits. And then he launches into an impromptu a cappella preview of the title track, which was inspired by a 1996 comic in which Superman comes out of retirement to save the world. The lyrics that effortlessly roll off his tongue may help explain his return: ”Take off the blazer/Loosen up the tie/Step inside the booth/Superman is alive!”
So without further ado, let us welcome, and celebrate, the return of JAY-Z, a.k.a. Jigga, a.k.a. Hova. He is, arguably, the most powerful man in the music business — but without his music, well, he’s just Clark Kent.
Truth is, most people took JAY-Z’s retirement declaration with a shovelful of salt. For good reason: The rapper had, in fact, been threatening to stop making CDs since 1996, when the success of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, ensured that he would never return to the hard-knock life of Marcy Projects. And yet following Reasonable Doubt, JAY-Z recorded a new studio album every year for the next seven years. Each went platinum or better, with 1998′s Vol 2: Hard Knock Life alone selling 5 million copies. 2001′s The Blueprint was an instant soul-drenched classic, while the eclectic, triple-platinum The Black Album features some of JAY-Z’s most memorable tracks, including the thunderous, Rick Rubin-overseen ”99 Problems.” So even after it became clear that JAY-Z was taking his new label role very, very seriously, there may have been only one person who truly thought he was retired: JAY-Z himself. ”I believed it, yeah,” JAY-Z insists. ”I believed it for two years.”
But at the start of this summer, his feelings changed.
”It’s more in the vein of The The Black Album than The Blueprint,” he says. ”I’ve been experimenting with things, different types of music.” In addition to Timbaland, JAY-Z has called on the production skills of Kanye West and Dr. Dre. He also hopes to reteam with Rick Rubin. ”Oh, and actually, Chris Martin produced a track on there,” he adds casually. Yes, Coldplay’s Chris Martin. ”We met at a charity dinner and just really kept in touch. He sent me these beautiful chords for this song called ‘Beach Chair.’ I had Dre put some drums on it. It’s really, really incredible.”
Kingdom’s lyrics, too, come from a wide variety of sources. A track called ”Most Kings” is inspired by a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting (which he owns). ”Lost Ones” finds the man who once rapped about his inability to shed tears dealing with the car-crash death of a beloved relative. ”One of the most crushing things that ever happened to me was losing my nephew,” he says. ”As you mature you realize that being vulnerable isn’t weak. You realize that a man is himself.”
He doesn’t yet know who will guest-perform on the CD (”I take care of that at the end”). But one candidate is Eminem. The only rapper who can claim more success than JAY-Z over the past decade did produce a track, ”Moment of Clarity,” on The The Black Album. But Eminem has kept an almost invisible profile since a spell in rehab and his short-lived remarriage to Kim Mathers. ”I speak to him from time to time,” says JAY-Z. ”He’s holding up. You know, he went through a tough time. He’s getting stronger.” Another possible guest, of course, is his frequent collaborator Beyoncé, who has also been his girlfriend since… Well, it’s hard to pinpoint when they did get together, given that both parties decline to even admit that they are a couple, despite the massive evidence to the contrary. To cite just one example, on the recent Beyoncé single ”Deja Vu,” JAY-Z raps that ”We used to bag girls like Birkin bags/Now I bag B”; the accompanying clip features the rapper being suggestively pawed by the former Destiny’s Child frontwoman.
Yet JAY-Z could not be more emphatic in his denial that the track represented any kind of official ”coming out” for the couple. ”No. No. No. No,” he says. ”’Bag’ is not having sex. To ‘bag’ someone is to court them. I don’t mean having sex.” But the rapper does concede that those who watch the clip and think ”Damn, it’s good to be Jay,” would not be wrong. ”At times, man,” he laughs. ”At times! Ha!”
(By Clark Collis Via Entertainment Weekly)
