Decoded

by Jay-Z

This is the intimate, first-person chronicle of the life and work of Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter in Brooklyn’s notorious Marcy Projects, now known to many as the greatest rapper alive. Told through lyrics, images and personal narrative, Decoded shares the story of Jay-Z’s life through the 10 codes that define him, giving an unparalleled insight into his background, influences and the artistic process that shapes his work. Each chapter features a highly personal narrative section followed by a visually captivating selection of his most famous and provocative lyrics underlining the chapter’s themes, along with Jay-Z’s own ‘decoding’ of each lyric, uncovering the wordplay and stories behind the song.This is a brilliant insight into the art and poetry of hip-hop, as well as the life of one of the genre’s greatest artists.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, Poetry, Hip Hop

411 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 16, 2009

About the author

Shawn Corey Carter, better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010. He has sold approximately 50 million albums worldwide, while receiving thirteen Grammy Awards for his musical work, and numerous additional nominations. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest rappers of all-time. He was ranked so by MTV in their list of The Greatest MCs of All-Time in 2006. Two of his albums, Reasonable Doubt (1996) and The Blueprint (2001) are considered landmarks in the genre with both of them being ranked in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Blender, included the former on their 500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die.

Jay-Z co-owns the 40/40 Club, is part-owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets and is also the creator of the line Rocawear.He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings, one of the three founders of Roc-A-Fella Records, and the founder of Roc Nation. As an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200 with eleven. Jay-Z also has had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, one as lead artist.

He married American R&B superstar Beyoncé Knowles on April 4, 2008. On December 11, 2009, Jay-Z was ranked as the 10th most successful artist of the 2000's by Billboard and ranking as the 5th top solo male artist and as the 4th top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jayz used to be my favorite rapper(until he sold out his entire community for a check from the NFL) Kendrick is the new King of the throne. He wasn't always my favorite rapper, that title use to be shared by Mase and Silk the Shocker( don't judge me! I was 10 years old!). It wasn't until around 1998 when Jayz released "Hard Knock Life" that I became a fan and a serious hip hop head. I then when back and bought all of Jay's old albums, I started listening to BIG and Pac. I completely immersed myself in all things hip hop. When I discovered Nas I immediately dumped Jay and became all about Nas and Queensbridge. Then Nas and Jay got into a rap beef over money? status? Nas' baby momma? my loyalties were tested. As much as I love "Either" Jay's diss records were just on another level lyrically. "Takeover" is still on my get hyped playlist. So while its commonly acknowledged that Nas won, in my heart Jayz is the undisputed champion.

Jayz was my favorite rapper before he ever joined forces with my Queen Beyonce and before i learned he was born in December and was a Sagittarius. That just became the cherry on top. Don't read Decoded if you want a biography or to know anything about his personal life. Decoded was written in 2010 so there's no Watch The Throne or 4:44 and really not much mention of the albums after "The Black Album". He doesn't once mention Beyonce by name. This book isn't about her, so if that's what you're interested in then this isnt the book for you.

Decoded is strictly for my fellow hip hop heads. Its a collection of his lyrics and lyrics by other artist he was inspired by. Its a deep dive into the meanings and history of Rap as an art form and the impact its had on culture, fashion, and politics. You learn the things that made Shawn Corey Carter the man we know as Jayz.

Reading this also made me think of what my favorite Jayz album is? The answer is The Blueprint but also sometimes Dynasty. What my favorite Jayz songs are? PSA, This Can't Be Life, Heart of the City and I Just Wanna Love You, but those are all subject to change based on my mood. I used to hate The Black Album but now its in my top 5. I still don't like Reasonable Doubt but I want to. As far as I'm concerned Kingdom Come never even happened. I didn't love 4:44 when I first listened to it but its growing on me and Bam is currently my favorite song.

Jayz is probably one of the most influentual artist of all time but age and money have corrupted his genus. I really hope he writes another volume for this book, I have so many questions about songs from Watch The Throne, BP3, Magna Carta Holy Grail, and 4:44.

As I stated above I recommend Decoded for hip hop heads but also poetry lovers.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jay-Z and Dream Hampton put together something which is not quite memoir, not quite manifesto and not quite full-blown lyrical analysis. Instead they just sort of dip in and out of each of these things, usually for just a few pages at a time before shifting moods. As someone who has been more or less conditioned to think of Black Pop Stars as eccentrics who live in their own insular, occasionally tragic little worlds. (Prince, George Clinton, Michael Jackson, Sun Ra, Sly Stone et al), I found his pragmatism and ice-cold level headedness both refreshing, and daunting. Yet no amount of business acumen or street smarts can disguise his giddy enthusiasm for both rapping and, breaking down said raps for the rest of us. And what a delirious, crazy verbal ballet it all is. Turns out, a bunch of poor kids from Brooklyn who wanted to make some easy cash are actually doing more to functionally expand our idea of what our language can do, and what it can express, than many rooms worth of portentous linguists and writers. Figures.
Oh, and it's beautifully designed and laid out, so have some respect for yourself (and your eyes) and find a physical copy.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jay-Z is my favorite rapper for a reason. That reason is not just the words "We used to use umbrellas to change the weather / Now we travel first class to change the forecast." It's not just that in Allure he alludes to "All the Laurels in the world / I feel your pain." As Hov himself'd say, he can spit over any beat.

But he knows the power of the music, of the words, of the memories and the self-reliance and the heartache and the buying your nephew a car just to have him die in it.

When Jay mentions that that tiny horn sample from Curtis & The Impressions' Man oh Man (I want to go back) in Jeezy's Go Crazy telegraphs just as much about the struggle as the words in the song, you know I know exactly what it means. And you know it too.

The best part about this book to me is that it reconfirms to me that after listening to Jay-Z for fifteen years, I do know what he's talking about. I get the verbiage, I know the references. I know Beware Of The Boys is telling me to be antagonistic to those who thought the war in Iraq was justified, not just because of the Bhangra music (which Americans may hear and think "Oh, this some Middle Eastern shit," and not know its Punjabi), but because Jay's there, guiding me through it.

I knew Lucifer wasn't proof that Hov worships the Baphomet, but that Kanye is just really good at speeding up dub samples ever so slightly. But I'm glad he mentioned it, like, "Hey just so you know, despite what 4 hour YouTube conspiracy videos claim, I am not actually an Illuminati Satanist."

I know that everyone gave him shit for that Coldplay collabo in which Hov actually sings a hook that says "Life is but a beach chair" I know we should probably refuse to acknowledge it. But Jay tries to let us know it does mean something, explaining away the haters, without resorting to saying, "I'm so rich, only Gwyneth Paltrow's husband understands me."

Jruss asked me, after reading parts of the book, "You think Jay-Z loves David Foster Wallace?" Cuz, like, footnotes boo.

My sister got this book for Xmas, even though we'd both asked for it. Does Hov ever rap about the Hollys of the world? No, but he feels yr pain too.

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Life and Times of Shawn Carter


Through the early chapters of ‘Decoded,’ I was dogged by a sense of dissonance. Apart from the lyrical transcripts, the voice of Jay-Z, the persona, scarcely appeared. It’s an unmistakable voice, recognizable by its bravado, its misogyny, its unabashed prioritizing of the self. Here, instead, I heard a narrative voice humming with graciousness, sharpening on occasion but tending toward softer, more elegant rhythms and tones.

Was this disembodiment the work of a ghost? I presume that, for a man whose trade demands mastery of language, pride would not allow it. I wondered, more plausibly, if Jay-Z had dissembled so as to please a literary crowd that’s leery of the method and message of contemporary hip-hop. After all, in this very book, he contends that every emcee is part trickster and that art “elevates and refines and transforms,” but “sometimes it just fucks with you for the fun of it.”

As ‘Decoded’ wound on, the steady stream of humble prose, despite being uncharacteristic, eventually compelled me to dispatch my suspicions. It felt too honest to be artifice. Confronted with the contradictory personalities of Jay-Z and Shawn Carter, I realized I needn’t embrace one and decry the other. Both could be genuine. The rapper persona is a paradoxical being – a character that lets the artist dissociate into a fictional form, yet, in so doing, provides heightened means for genuine expression.

This is not a book, however, that’s primarily concerned with its creator or his alter ego; the prevailing authorial desire in “Decoded” is outward-oriented: to advocate for hip-hop as a legitimate art form. He does this by analyzing bars and verses - a sometimes tedious, sometimes illuminating undertaking. He does it through an audacious-but-successful likening of braggadocio rap tracks to Shakespeare sonnets. And he does it through deft navigation of the social and political aspects of the African-American ghetto experience, thus providing a vivid context for the rise of hip-hop. In a particularly incisive passage, he writes, “We came out of the generation of black people who finally got the point: No one’s going to help us. So we went for self, for family, for block, for crew – which sounds selfish; it’s one of the criticisms hustlers and rappers both get, that we’re hypercapitalists concerned only with the bottom line and enriching ourselves. But it’s just a rational response to the reality we faced. No one was going to help us.”

These cultural observations, while mostly fascinating and artful, substitute for deeper probing into the author’s life. For instance, Carter discusses ghetto violence, but sanitizes his own experiences. He examines Darwinian competition in rap culture, but avoids comments on his own battles with fellow rappers. In this sense, the book does not satisfy the taste for autobiography that it activates.

Still, focusing on what is included, “Decoded” is a refreshing book. Thoughtfully constructed, it has emotional and intellectual heft. Varied in form, with text/lyrics/footnotes/graphics, it’s an expedited read. Because of its author’s renown and the inclusivity of the subject matter, it also has broad appeal.

Carter proposes that great characters compel the audience to feel connected to their motivations and actions, as if they own them. The dissonance between Carter and Jay-Z, the person and the persona, is striking but, for this reason, not absolute. Both perceive and evoke their reality with acuity, allowing us to hear our voices in theirs.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was riding with Jay, through the whole book, and I think the videos in this enhanced edition are invaluable and definitely add to the work. To hear him explain his thought process on certain songs is a bonus to the literature.

Being a fan of Jay Z, I wasn't just interested in the decoding of his songs, I was decoding his words about the songs. So when it gets near the end and Jay offers up his defense of the word n****, everything in the preceding 300 odd pages becomes cloudy, or a hustle.

You can't reduce n**** to "just a word," when you just spent an entire book talking about words and meanings of words. You can't describe situations where you heard "words" and reacted based on what you were hearing, and then reduce-arguably-the most potent word in the English language to "just" a word. Utterly ridiculous.

Because if n**** is just a word, then they are all just words, so none of it actually matters, why then try to decode anything, if the most muscular word has no meaning, then the little words have even less meaning. And I've heard all the arguments for the use of the word, the spelling, context, etc., even read the book.

For me it's about courage, if you are courageous enough to take the pain and history out of n****, then why stop there? Why not take on other words that are offensive and derogatory towards other ethnic groups. Why? Because we know the use of n**** is cheap, it doesn't cost one anything, it won't prevent your record from being released, it won't prevent you from being invited to the White House, it won't keep you from riches. There is no cost to using that word.

Now, think of a degrading word directed at any other ethnic group and imagine the liberal use of it, could any artist have achieved the heights of Jay in such a scenario? The answer is so obvious it's laughable.

I digress, back to the book. I found it potentially inspirational and his defense of the culture of hip-hop is definitely laudable. For those who don't really listen to music and lyrics, this is a good book for you to understand all the nuances that can exist in a song. And Jay is one of the best to ever do it in the rap genre, so to read about and see on the pages layers in lyrics and rhymes within rhymes, will help those gain a better or deeper understanding.

There were some surprises in the decoding of certain songs, some I heard and others I missed until I read the book. Jay takes you through a chronological history of rap, delineating how the styles changed along with the times and even providing context for the alliance with hustling.

I think it is a worthy achievement and if not for the lame excuse and explanation of n****, I may have gone higher on the rating, but that cop out is tremendous, and Jay is talented enough to offer more meaning to his use of n****, but alas as he tells us throughout he has a hustler's spirit. And so that becomes just another part of his hustle. As long as you get that, it's all good.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cool original book. It was very uniquely formatted and gives depth to Jay-Z's creative mind.

For someone who idolized Michael Jordan, Mr. Carter's "retirement" and return to the hip hop game is not surprising. Though- I must admit, I haven't been caught up with his new music since the Black Album.

Also important to note, the first footnote for "My 1st Song" doesn't make sense.

It says, "'Chips' is slang for money, and championships, which relates to Hakeem Olajuwon, who won multiple championships in the NBA in college." (149)

How can someone play in the NBA in college? Did they mean and? Olajuwon won two championships in the NBA, a gold medal in the Olympics, and lost consecutive NCAA championships in college.

[Nnedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this book is great, so let me say that up front. i recommend it. BUT- IT IS THE MOST SEXIST BOOK ON EARTH, quietly so. one paragraph on Foxy Brown? really? BARELY a mention of the impact of Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Salt & Peppa, or Roxanne Shanté (no mention of her at all). this man talks about hip-hop as if it is, by definition male. and in the same breath calls it black america's most defining art. Wooow

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really surprised me. I'm always curious about the lives of musicians and have always had an appreciation for a select roster of hip hop artists, but I genuinely found this book compelling and hard to put down.

Jay-Z doesn't come off as arrogant as I'd have thought. Instead, he seems very self-aware and conscience of how unique his life is. He also lets readers into a world that most probably know little about. His explanations of drug dealing, rapping, and the music industry are given matter of factly without the glorification that you hear from others. The sections dealing with the perception of rap and it's validity of an art form create a strong polemic and I found myself coming away with a different appreciation. His ruminations on the history of rap were also enlightening.

Finally, I loved the annotated lyrics. Not only do they explain vocabulary that I have no understanding of, but they also show his thoughtfulness and his artistry with words. While it's risky to over explain any writing, the payoff is worth it in this instance.

I'm excited to recommend this to others and see the surprise on their faces. I'm also excited for the "told you so" moment if they actually read it and come back to me.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend lent Decoded me after I expressed a desire to “get into hip hop”. This is not a whim on my part but a recognition of a gap in my otherwise wide musical listening. Although I would say that my “favourite” music tends towards a fairly narrow swath of sound, and my tastes are decidedly more pop than hard rock in later years, I appreciate a lot of different sounds, albeit perhaps not equally. I rock out to classical music cranked loud with my windows down; I dance around my kitchen to Florence + the Machine or my classroom to … well, pretty much anything. My music collection is not devoid of hip hop either, but those songs are few and far between. More importantly, though, I lack any clear idea of who I should try to listen to. My typical musical discovery involves hearing a song that I like somewhere, figuring out who performs it, and then going through their catalogue to discover if I want all the things or just that track, then buying accordingly.

This strategy hasn’t worked for hip hop. Part of it is that I don’t often understand the lyrics when I hear a rap song. I might like the beat or the flow, maybe there’s a hook that stands out that I enjoy, and I can groove to it when it comes on. Basically, when Jay Z says:

Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don’t bother trying to get it. The problem isn’t in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don’t even know how to listen to the music.

he’s talking about me. Except I am trying to get it, but very slowly and probably poorly because I have no idea what I’m doing. This book helped, a little, but in the end I suspect I am more like Kathleen Norris, whose reaction to reading proofs Jay Z quotes in his afterword of this edition. She speaks as a poet who has been given a better understanding of something she knew was important but had no way of interpreting. I’m hobbled further by a more general antipathy towards poetry (sorry Norris), and so maybe that’s why rap, which seems so much more poetical than other genres of music, intimidates me.

Because rap is poetry. I pity people who dismiss it as anything less, and Decoded proves them wrong. Consider how Jay Z breaks down “Public Service Announcement” and compares rap to sonnets:

But even when a rapper is just rapping about how dope he is, there’s something a little bit deeper going on. It’s like a sonnet, believe it or not. Sonnets have a set structure, but also a limited subject matter: They are mostly about love. Taking on such a familiar subject and writing about it in a set structure forced sonnet writers to find every nook and cranny in the subject and challenged them to invent new language for saying old things. It’s the same with braggadocio in rap. When we take the most familiar subject in the history of rap—why I’m dope—and frame it within the sixteen-bar structure of a rap verse, synced to the specific rhythm and feel of the track, more than anything it’s a test of creativity and wit. It’s like a metaphor for itself; if you can say how dope you are in a completely original, clever, powerful way, the rhyme itself becomes proof of the boast’s truth. And there are always deeper layers of meaning buried in the simplest verses. I call rhymes like the first verse on “Public Service Announcement” Easter-egg hunts, because if you listen to it once without paying attention, you’ll brush past some lines that can offer more meaning and resonance every time you listen to them.

I love this paragraph so much. It is an eloquent explanation of what rappers are doing when they front. Moreover, it demonstrates the commitment required to create memorable and powerful verses. Jay Z is not claiming that every rapper knows the structure of sonnets and is labouring to recreate them in rap. Many rappers probably cannot explain how they rap as clearly and academically as Jay Z has here—but they still know their stuff. Indeed, they know it on an intuitive level that far surpasses someone like me with an English degree, because they live the flow. A good MC can spit rhyme any time inspiration strikes, as Jay Z recounts the days he had to rush into a store to buy something so he could get a brown paper bag to write sudden lyrics on before he forgot them.

Jay Z says he wants “to make the case that hip-hop lyrics—not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC—are poetry if you look at them closely enough”. I believe he makes that case more than adequately. Structure and cleverness, as mentioned above, aside, some of these verses are just so deep and so beautiful that it’s difficult to believe they might be juxtaposed next to a line about bitches coming on to him or the money his character has made from hustling. They are, though, and time and again Jay Z returns to the idea that it is more difficult to separate these two things in hip hop than one might want to believe—that is, “clean” rap is largely an illusion. However, he is more than willing to mock both himself and his critics by serving up self-satirizing songs like “Ignorant Shit” or the “almost a deliberate provocation to simpleminded listeners” of “99 Problems” with its clickbait chorus line but ultimately unrelated subject matter:

The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, n****, bitch, motherfucker, and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It’s all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or a n**** and then they run off yelling “See!” and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about. But that would be like listening to Maya Angelou and ignoring everything until you heard her drop a line about drinking or sleeping with someone’s husband and then dismissing her as an alcoholic adulterer.

I grok Jay Z’s frustration; I really do. It’s so weird that our society is fine with giving PG ratings to movies that show brutal violence, yet a little bit of nudity or sex suddenly makes it R-rated. Showcase (a specialty channel here in Canada) is fine with showing a rabbit getting its head ripped off in The Magicians or Eliot getting the shit kicked out of him in Mr. Robot, but they make sure to bleep the F-word—I assume because they think if their viewers hear a single F-bomb their brains will implode?

Yet I am also somewhat complicit in this. I admit to qualifying my appreciation for rap with things like “but not gangsta rap” or “I like rap, except the parts with misogynistic lyrics”. While my intentions here might have been good, it shows an ignorance regarding the nuance that Jay Z articulates about this genre. To be frank, it’s a little racist of me: here I am, a privileged white dude, bursting onto the scene like the Kool-Aid man and insisting I’ll take “the good rap” but not “the offensive stuff”, as if I can pick and choose. Obviously it’s up to me what I listen to. But Jay Z’s stories and explanations are a stark reminder that I am so incredibly lucky with my lot in life:

Most of us come from communities where people are just supposed to stay in their corners quietly, live and die without disturbing the master narrative of American society. Simply speaking our truths, which flew in the face of the American myth, made us rebels.

It’s worthwhile having a conversation about the meanings within rap lyrics, as it is with lyrics from any genre. But such a conversation taken out of the context of those lyrics’ birth is little more than tone policing. I have the privilege of ignoring the pain and poverty that the predominantly Black communities face, the constant violence and aggressions that result in a vicious cycle of drug selling and buying. Jay Z is very critical, rightly so, of the ways in which the American government launched a “war on drugs” even as it funded drug cartels in other countries.

There is pain here, but there is also a buoyant sense of optimism and hope that hip hop is a way to improve the future lots of Jay Z’s brothers and sisters. Jay Z observes that in some cases the potential for rap to influence social change must be there, or else why would authorities go to such lengths to suppress it:

Rappers, as a class, 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.

Opposition to rap on the basis of character, then, is another form of culturally inculcated anti-Blackness. While I suppose I was aware of this in some latent sense, it took these words to make me realize it consciously. There’s nothing wrong with finding rap music unappealing, for whatever reason—but condemning it or the “offensive” words so often used in its lyrics in a wholesale fashion is another example of wilful silence in the face of the oppression that Black people and communities face. Hip hop is the latest in a long line of musical genres used—and often even piloted and popularized by Black musicians before being co-opted and made safe by white musicians—to express the angst, pain, and raw emotion of the oppression or, as it is put, “the struggle”. Jay Z believes that hip hop’s power is far from confined to Black experiences, though:

This is why the hustler’s story—through hip-hop—has connected with a global audience. The deeper we get into those sidewalk cracks and into the mind of the young hustler trying to find his fortune there, the closer we get to the intimate human story, the story of struggle, which is what defines us all.

(Emphasis his.) This statement, lavishly splayed in white text on a black page early in the book, resonates deeply with me despite zero experience with the hustling lifestyle. I get it, because as a storyteller and reader and educator I get that need to connect on a human level with the stories we tell in all avenues of our lives.

This book is part song explanation, part autobiography, and part rumination on the politics and pressures on African Americans. Jay Z explains the meaning behind many of the lines in the selected songs, and he also comments on his choice of words and rhymes, as demonstrated above. The songs are not ordered chronologically; rather, they are grouped around loose themes that dip in and out of his history: Part 1 heavily features his adolescence, growing up on the streets, and life as a hustler, to which he compares the life of a hip hop artist; Part 2 is more about the business of hip hop and the pressure of being “known”; Part 3 gets more political; and Part 4 is an attempt to capture the zeitgeist and issues around which hip hop crystallized. Throughout this book, Jay Z openly discusses his time selling drugs, his relationship with other rappers, music that influenced and inspired him, and his attitude towards politics, particularly the election of President Obama. I imagine fans already familiar with his work will relish the first-hand explanations herein as well as the frankness of his reflection: there is more Shawn Carter here than rapper Jay Z. As someone who until this book only knew Jay Z second- and third-hand, Decoded is now a firm anchor going forward in my exploration of hip hop.

Jay Z says that he’s “happiest knowing that [Decoded]’s working as a gateway drug for kids to get into reading and into thinking about new ways to use their own voices and experiences”. I have long talked about books being my drug. And I too like to use them as a way to help people express themselves. I’ve known other teachers to use hip-hop in their classrooms; I still need to get around to reading Emdin’s Urban Science Education for the Hip Hop Generation (even though I don’t teach science), though I did pick up his latest, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too . Largely I’ve eschewed using hip hop because my lack of familiarity makes me worry that I’ll use it in a inauthentic way. Hence, my exploration of hip hop is not merely a desire for cooler tunes.

In my latest iteration of an English class I worked hard to improve my unit on stereotypes, drawing on the unfortunate proliferation of police shootings of Black men in July of this year. We discussed Black Lives Matter, and I did take the chance and include both Jay ’Zs “Spiritual” and Beyoncé’s “Formation” in this discussion. Though my mastery of this content is incomplete, that just means my students and I are on a quest for knowledge together. Sometimes it can be tough as a teacher to let go of needing to have all the answers, but the rewards are often worth such a risk. Although Decoded came too late for this version of the unit, it will doubtlessly inform my planning next time around. I’ll need at least that much time to mull it over anyway.

[Gabriella · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a mostly enjoyable account of Jay-Z��s life and work, narrated by him (and? through?) dream hampton, which is why I’m counting it for this month’s female authors challenge. The format of this book is really interactive, and it often reads more like a picture book or liner notes than a formal memoir.

This is another book for my “Unpacking the Elevator” course, and so a lot of the themes I found relate to our class conversations, which currently focus on the interiority Solange and Jay-Z’s art creates for oft-pathologized black folk. In Decoded, Jay-Z shares some worthwhile thoughts about rap’s narratives of the hustler, Che Guevara and Brooklyn revolutionaries, the importance of an “inner sanctum” to ward off artistic insanity, and his musical embrace of everyday people. He sees his art as a way to explain “the interior space of a young kid’s head, his psychology,” because “to tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie.” This conceptualization of hip-hop, as a soul-searching, healing artistic process is all the more believable being explained by one of the genre’s best.

I won’t lie—these themes were about as much of his “decoding” as I could stomach. I skipped past most of the song lyric footnotes, which are easily a third of this book! Explaining his lines with such detail was an impossible project on such a grand scale, and after a couple of song “decodings,” Jay-Z’s “insights” had the same magic-ruining effect as explaining a joke.

I definitely think hip-hop heads, music nerds, and bigger Jay-Z fans than myself would still find a lot to appreciate in this book. While the first hundred pages were nice, by the end, I personally felt like I’d spent a bit too much time with somebody's long-winded uncle.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jay-Z's Decoded is part biography, part commentary on American events and issues from the 1980's to the present, part poetry anthology, part history of rap and hip-hop music, and part sociology textbook. Don't be fooled into thinking it is going to be a quick, light read. It was interesting to read this book after Keith Richards's Life. Illegal drugs had a huge effect on the lives of both of these men; Richards as a consumer, and Carter as a dealer. Both men found inspiration and solace in American Black music, and are fans of music of all kinds. It is wonderful to read books about and by people who are passionate about what they do. It was also thought-provoking to read Decoded in such close sequence to Richard Wright's Native Son. These books both ask the same question. If a marginalized group has a very limited set of choices in their means of survival, and most of the choices are bad, or even deemed illegal by the majority, can they be faulted for making one of these choices out of desperation? I don't know the answer. I am a fan of Jay-Z's and was quite sure of his genius before even reading this book. While I enjoyed reading the featured lyrics and their annotations, at times, I felt he was trying too hard to prove his intelligence. That said, I did learn a lot. For example, I didn't know that Lucifer, one of my favorites, was inspired by the death of Biggie's brother, Bobalob. I also enjoyed the funky layout of this book, its different fonts and hip graphics. Bonus fun fact for U2 fans: Bono and Jay-Z are co-owners of the restaurant The Spotted Pig in NYC.

12/2/11 update: http://news.yahoo.com/jay-z-provides-...

2/7/12 update: I wonder how this book would have been different if he had written it after his daughter's birth.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh yes I did read this. Well, to be perfectly accurate, I read MOST of it. I have only heard one Jay-Z song all the way through, and most of this book consists of him interpreting his lyrics, defining and defending the language and the life behind the songs. I must say, in full disclosure, that I rarely listen to rap and hardly consider it to be music; and I am someone who listens to almost every genre out there. I have dismissed rap as misogynistic, violent and derogatory. They freely "borrow" (steal) music and lyrics from other songs and most times the original is better. "Ice, Ice, Baby" anyone?
Here I gave Sean Carter his due, I listened to his story. I really would prefer he write an actual memoir, because the autobiographical parts of this book were interesting and heart-breaking. He would probably contend that his lyrics ARE his memoirs.
I can say that the book is beautifully put together, and I was frequently checking the credits in the back to identify some of the more stunning visual components. It is almost a coffee-table book, and that might be what the true intention was here. To create a beautiful presentation of rap lyric as poetry, of Jay-Z as artist and worthy of this kind of "buy it in the museum gift shop" tome.
If you are a fan of rap, this would be a must-have.
If I were teaching social studies in high school (do they still teach social studies?) or even English to gifted and talented students, I might use this as an interesting assignment. Get them to open up, yo.

[C.E. G · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This took me almost 2 months to complete, and that's actually the pace that I'd recommend reading it at.

If I were to make a list of books that I wish all Americans would read, this one would make the cut. I doubt that Jay Z and I see eye to eye on all the issues, but that didn't really matter to me while I read this.

Before reading this book, I hadn't really listened to Jay Z's work (besides hearing it on the radio, but considering the complexity of his lyrics and how attentive I am when I listen to the radio, that doesn't count for much). All I really knew was that he's megarich and married to Beyonce. I figured he'd be smart, but there was a depth and vulnerability in his book that really humanized him for me. He writes with a nuance, (com)passion, and perspective that I can't help but admire, and he tells stories about a culture that is often underrepresented and misunderstood.

I'm putting this book on my "street lit" shelf because of his insight into the settings and mindsets found in street lit fiction. If you read only one book in the genre, read this one.

Overall, fantastic. I wouldn't say it was a particularly gripping read for me, and I imagine Jay Z fans will get a lot more out of it than I did. But regardless of your familiarity with his music, I recommend you check it out.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If anyone has ever been curious about the pure gamesmanship of wordplay involved with rap... this is a really cool breakdown

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished this book, I knew that I wanted to review it, but I wasn’t sure what I had just read. I flipped through other goodreads reviews and some people called it a memoir; it is. Some called it a scrapbook; it is. Some called it a tabletop book; it is. I guess that’s why I found it so hard to categorize, because it was all of these types of books contained in around 300 pages, but what is most important about this book that the covers these different mediums is that it works in each one, and it works as a collective.

To be honest, before even reading this book, I think I was inclined to give it five stars. I mean, it's Jay Z, Hov, Jigga man, Reasonable Doubt, Blueprint...and on and on. I remember when “Hard Knock Life” came out with the little orphan Annie chorus (I was in high school). I can recite every line from The Blueprint and Reasonable Doubt, along with individual songs from other albums. I can even remembering hooking with Jay Z on the radio. So yes, I was biased going in, but I’m glad that Jay’s book was as well put together as his music is.

If I were to specifically recommend this book, it would be to two types of people: Those who love Jay Z and those that hate hip-hop because they believe it is misogynistic, violent, etc. If you love Jay, then you'll love how he breaks down the lines of his songs. You'll love the looks into his personal life, especially as a public figure that guards his private life as well as he does. The book is a glimpse through hip hop history through the eyes of one of the greatest that ever picked up a mic. This is Mozart talking about classical music, Jordan talking about basketball, Shakespeare talking about literature; you may or may not believe that Jay Z belongs in that company, but in hip hop, he stands on that mountain top.

I've always analyzed lyrics on my own so much of what he said was known to me. However, the way he analyzed the sounds and the breakdown of rhythm (such as Run and his percussion like rhymes) really got to me. I tend to listen to rap for the lyrics, so I’ve always loved the Jay Z’s Tupac’s, Biggie’s, and Outkast’s while looking past the rappers who were lyrically challenged. However, after reading this book, I have a new perspective in which to view hip hop, which is amazing because this is something that I’ve loved and studied for so long.

For the people who dislike hip hop, I think this is a book they would enjoy and a book that would clear some preconceived notions. It will not, however, make someone like hip hop if they already don’t. Instead, the book will showcase the reasons why people love hip hop, and show that it is more than just thugs talking about shooting each other and having sex. Whether or not you come away from this book liking hip hop will be relative to the individual, but after reading this book, you will have respect for the craft and for the man at its forefront: H-O-V.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a powerful read. I didn’t have any expectations when I began reading this book. I asked on Facebook for book recommendation and someone suggested I read “Decoded”. I am so happy I went with this suggestion because I don’t think I would have gone and read this on my own. I am actually surprised at how relatable, informative, historical, real and well put together this book was. My surprise also points out one of the major points Jay-Z made in the book, why am I so surprised that a hip-hop artiste wrote a great autobiography? After finishing this book I really have a greater appreciation of rappers especially those who made it out of the “hustle”.

Before starting this book I could explicitly say, I am not a huge Jay-Z fan, but after finishing this book I think I am a fan of the man, not so much the music, but him as a person. I love how relatable he is, how graphic, and “real” he described his struggle throughout the book. I loved his commentary on American events, especially because he isn’t as vocal as most musicians, hearing his take on what happened in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and Obama’s election refreshing to say the least.

I can only say I know Jay-Z’s major hits, I’ve never owned any of his albums or sought to go and listen to any. After finishing this book and hearing his thought process and how much of his life is in a song, I am convinced I need to make listening to his albums a “to-do”.

While “Decoded” was a lot of things, most importantly, a historical look at hip-hop, what it isn’t much of is a memoir. My only gripe is that Jay-Z didn’t include more of his life growing up, more of how he built his brand and empire. I would have loved to be privy that that information but I guess you can only fit so much in a 300 page book.

While I was reading the book I got a little annoyed that Jay-Z didn't organize this autobiography in a chronological order, it felt a little all over the place. But as I continue reading, Jay-Z mentioned that his life is like poetry and not like prose, so it makes sense that his book wouldn't follow a prose-like layout. Genius!

I definitely recommend this book; it will surprise and leave you in awe. If it doesn’t wow you, at least you can speak on the history of hip-hop from Jay-Z’ perspective.

P.S. Apparently Jay-z has a photographic memory, cool huh?!

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, one of my favorite all-time books!

Things I learnt from this book:

1 Jay-Z actually is from a broken home in a housing project and actually was a (highly successful) crack dealer/runner for years before becoming a rapper.

2 Jay-Z has a photographic memory and aced his way through school. He is also ADD and can't sit still.

3 Jay-Z never signed with a label (they wouldn't take him). So with a few friends they started Roc-A-Fella Records with drug money Jay-Z had saved. As a result he has always been an entrepreneur (even as a drug dealer!) His secret to entrepreneurial success? Writing everything down and being systematic.

4 Jay-Z is a shy, thoughtful guy and has an amazing talent for language. If he wasn't a famous rapper he'd be successful at something else, no question.

5 Jay-Z comes across as modest (yes, you heard that right!) and very likable on a personal level. There is none of the braggadocio in his raps - which he spends a while explaining in the book. This is a modest and humble account that provides real insight into his character.

6 There is a lot more to the hip hop movement than I realized (from a historical perspective) given the voice it gave the black minority in America at a time when crack was ravaging its way through the community.

7) Jay-Z puts a lot more thought into his lyrics than first meets the eye. The notes and explanations to his songs are without question a highlight of the book.

So, go and read it!

[Dr. J. Gardiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for anyone interested in learning about the expression of art through rap

[Aleeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

People who think they know me will find it hard to believe I read this book, much less rated it amazing. Perhaps that is how Jay-Z feels when people write him off as a drug-dealing, gun-loving, woman-hating gangster thug.

Decoded is several books in one: a memoir, a history lesson, a social commentary, a book of poetry, and a set of Cliff Notes. First the memoir: Jay-Z gives a honest account of the life that he lead on the way to selling millions of records. His story is raw, warts and all; growing up in the projects, with dealers as the only successful men in the community will mark you for life, but according to Jay-Z, it doesn't have to define you.

Jay-Z owns up to everything, and denies nothing, watching and learning from the early rappers, but most importantly, waiting until he could enter the music business on his own terms. He saw early artists lifted up, then cast aside by fickle music companies, saw them make fortunes then lose them, and Jay-Z took copious notes. He tells of selling crack up and down the east coast, and realizing that his rap hustle was as strong, and as profitable, as his street hustle, he is able to take the lessons he learned and repurpose them to his benefit.

In terms of social commentary, Decoded shows how drug-dealing infiltrates a neighborhood, how bad choices are made by kids who don't have many opportunities, and how the government, from social services, to law enforcement is perceived after it abandons then stereotypes an entire community. Jay-Z offers an insider's account of rap's nascent entry into mainstream music, and recognizes the artists who brought rap from the street corner to the recording studios. From his perspective, elements of rap were about protest, rebellion and freedom of expression.

Like Shakespeare, and poetry, rap music can seem like a foreign language, full of swagger, misogyny and brutality. There are also nuances that you might miss, because of bias, or misdirected focus..but... if you have a great teacher who can guide you, or a good set of Cliff Notes, it can decipher that language for you, and just might make you admire (if not love) what you once abhorred simply because you didn't understand it. Jay-Z selects certain songs and line by line, provides an annotated version.

One of the things that surprised me was the deep love of language that Jay-Z possesses. I've always thought he was a talented wordsmith. I'll admit I was impressed that someone would add rap lyrics to Hard Knock Life from the musical Annie, and I don't have to wonder how he pulled off getting the rights to the song anymore. Now that he has been 'decoded', I can more fully see why Jay-Z has been so very successful. He is all that I believed he was before I started reading; now I understand he is far more.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. When Hova writes a book...it's weird. Not because he's black or a rapper...mostly because he's not old enough really to write a memoir. Especially since he just became a dad. This is ultimately my problem with memoirs: Author, you're too young to write a memoir; live some more life please.

Luckily, this is not a memoir, not really. It's really a defense of rap/hip hop, comparable to Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry," which is one of my favorite prose pieces of all time. Now I say comparable because it does exactly what Shelley does for poetry: it legitimizes hip-hop, not only as an art form, but as an intellectual tool capable of enacting change in "reality." Of course, it's also a subtle defense of Jay-Z's street cred, but that's almost irrelevant. I definitely recommend this book for all English teachers and those looking to teach English or those trying to understand how to read and explicate poetry. Hova does a little autobiographical writing, but the thrust of the book is explaining how rap is like poetry. And it is. He analyzes his songs in very technical literary terms and hits upon many of the same concepts that we English majors have learned to recognize. He explains how he uses the multiplicity of language, the flexibility of words, to condense and compress meaning and intentions and all sorts of wonderful poetic tricks. If you're looking for a bridge to Donne or Wordsworth or Blake or Eliot or Sandburg, Jay-Z is building one. And it also teaches kids how to look at songs critically, how to dissect the messages being poured into their ears, always a good thing.

Sadly, he only mentions Beyonce once. I'm not going to lie, that's really why I didn't give it a higher rating. Yes, a great teaching tool, a passionate and articulate ode to rap and hip hop, and a sharp examination of race in America, but MOAR BEYONCE pls.

[Zack Greenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I'm about to release my own book on Jay-Z (http://jayzbook.com).

That said, I thought that Decoded was a beautifully conceived and designed book. Ultimately, though, I felt that it didn't decode much at all. The book’s 300-plus pages are divided between traditional narrative, lyrical analysis and sprawling photos; the lavish spreads and chunky fonts that dominate Decoded make it more of a coffee table book than an autobiography.

Decoded has its moments, to be sure. We learn that Jay-Z was referring to a female (drug-sniffing) dog when he says “bitch” in the hit song “99 Problems,” and we’re treated to some breathtaking descriptions of the hustler’s life (“In that bitter cold, folded into the crevices of a project wall, hundreds of miles from home, I sold crack to addicts who were killing themselves”).

But he glosses over the crucial moments of harrowing tales from his youth ("We faced off and guns were drawn, but luckily nobody got shot") and his alleged stabbing of record producer Lance "Un" Rivera in 1999. ("I headed back over to him, but this time I was blacking out with anger. The next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose in the club.") And there's nary a mention of Beyoncé.

All in all, I'd recommend if you're interested in a sprawling narrative of hip-hop with a dose of Jay-Z thrown in -- but not if you're expecting an in-depth memoir/autobiography.

[Alana Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, it was a great commentary on the growth of culture of hip-hop and New York. You are left with an undoubtedly greater appreciation of hip-hop as a art form and music genre.

I felt that it lacked consistency and more in-depth detailing. Jay-Z skipped in and out of major moments of his life which could have been explained in more detail.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ummm... don't read this if quoted expletives offend your sensibilities. Gotta be true to the source material.

Exegesis - critical annotations of, and usually accompanied by, a sacred or poetic text

Housing projects are a great metaphor for the government's relationship to poor folks: these huge islands built mostly in the middle of nowhere, designed to warehouse lives. People are still people, though, so we turned the projects into real communities, poor or not. We played in fire hydrants and had cookouts and partied, music bouncing off concrete walls. But even when we could shake off the full weight of those imposing buildings and try to just live, the truth of our lives and struggle was still invisible to the larger country. The rest of the country was freed of any obligation to claim us. Which was fine, because we weren't really claiming them, either. (p. 155)

That's a typical excerpt from Decoded, an illustrated book whose primary purpose is to present and explain selected Jay-Z lyrics. Jay-Z annotates his lyrics like Talmudic material or translated poetry: lyrics on the left-hand page with forward-slashes standing in for line-breaks and occasional phrases boldfaced and enumerated, the annotations/explanations on the right-hand page. His lyrics are grouped by chapter and more loosely by topic, each group set apart from the others by illustrations, anecdotes, prefaces, and observations. It's a handy system, and a fascinating read.

Memoir – a stream-of-consciousness autobiography conjured more from the author's personal reflection than arising from contemporaneous notekeeping such as might be found in a journal or diary

I've been to shantytowns in Angola that taught me that what we consider to be crushing poverty in the United States has nothing to do with what we have materially – even in the projects, we're rich compared to some people in other parts of the world.… The worst thing about being poor in America isn't the deprivation…. Poverty is relative. (p. 218)

Poor people in general have a twisted relationship with the government…. We get to know all kinds of government agencies not because of civics class, but because they actually visit our houses and sit up on our couches asking questions. From the time we're small children we go to crumbling public schools that tell us all we need to know about what the government thinks of us. (p. 154)

One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because… they don't think of themselves as poor. It's embarrassing. When you're a kid, even in the projects, one kid will mercilessly snap on another kid over minor material differences, even though by the American standard, they're both broke as shit. The burden of poverty is {primarily} the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life. (p. 218)

And devalued. And ignored.

I remember coming back home from doing work {drug dealing} out of state with my boys in a caravan of Lexuses that we parked right in the middle of Marcy {Projects, in Brooklyn}. I ran up to my mom's apartment to get something and looked out the window and saw those three new Lexuses gleaming in the sun, and thought, 'Man, we doin' it.' In retrospect, yeah, that was kind of ignorant, but at the time I could just feel that stink and shame of being broke lifting off of me, and it felt beautiful. (p. 219)

Jay-Z's an interesting character – literally. Late in Decoded, rapper Shawn Carter asserts that all rap lyrics (including his own as Jay-Z) – nay, all poetry, including his own as Jay-Z – are fictional portrayals of the author's true self, even when they are ostensibly autobiographical. What do I know or care for what's real or what's fake? It's all largely outside of my immediate personal experience, but no less convincing or enlightening for all of that. Carter argues that the creation of a sympathetic protagonist is critical to finding an audience, no matter how fantastic or mundane the situations in which the character is placed.

You can only carry this existential concept so far, though. While it's certainly convenient (exculpatory?) to observe that we all wear public and private masks and play different characters each dependent on our specific context, at some point we need to come to grips with whether the distinction from a "true self" is at all meaningful. Or, as G.B. Trudeau puts it (in the fourth panel):

Jay-Z has well-established street cred. The rest of us lucky enough not to have shared his formative experiences will find Jay-Z's vivid depiction of ghetto life more or less consistent with the Baltimore of the HBO series The Wire. Of course, there's a limit to how much retelling an author can get away with before the proceedings get dull. This would be a better book if the author avoided repeatedly placing himself on the same cold, windblown, crack-strewn corners in each of the first three chapters. Once you get the idea, it's tempting to skim forward a chapter or two, though that risks missing some unique insights. Still, this is only a problem that infects the first third of the book… and the book's not so long overall that its author can't be indulged.

On the other hand, repetition of Jay-Z's origin story is consistent with Carter's overall output. He writes here that he originally intended the tracks of his first album, Reasonable Doubt, to run the gamut of his life experiences in case he didn't (or couldn't) follow it up. Yet he did follow it up, and did so with a trilogy of autobiographical recordings (Volumes 1, 2, and 3) on the way to releasing 8 studio albums in as many years. This nonstop output culminates in a "retirement" disk, called The Black Album, his most personal work of all, incorporating as it does a track, "December 4th," that interpolates his mother 's recorded reminiscences of his childhood into the lyrical framework. All these releases shipped platinum , so Jay-Z's seeming inability to get over himself is arguably as much a successful business model as an idée fixe.

Gesamtkunstwerk – literally, the "whole art work," but more exactly, the whole-art work; a work of art encompassing multiple art forms, the entirety contributing to a single experience… in this case, multimedia.

Can you judge a book by its cover? As a book, Decoded has the look and feel of your typical coffee-table volume – packed with glossy photos, pencil drawings, and artistically-arranged variable-font typeset. (It's not as bulky, though, being of typical trade size.) As such, it carries with it all the pretension, aspiration, and aesthetic panache of any exhibit catalog. Here we have Shawn Carter as entertainer; as curator of his Jay-Z persona, life experience, and world view; and as paragon of excellence. This book is a presentation, a memoir both packed and packaged with value. While adopting such a format always risks subsuming substance to style, to the author's credit the book emerges more handsome than eyesore, and the illustrative style adds to rather than competes with or detracts from its content.

Apologia – an explanation or self-justification

When I was a kid the debate was LL {Cool J} versus Run-DMC, or , later, Kane versus Rakim…. It's a tribute to how deeply felt hip-hop is that people don't just sit back and listen to the music – they have to break it down, pick the lyrics apart, and debate the shit with other fans who are doing the same thing. When people talk about forms of media, sometimes they can compare lean-forward media (which are interactive, like video games or the Internet) and lean-back media (which are passive, like television or magazines). Music can be lean-back sort of media, it can just wash over you or play in the background – but hip-hop is different. It forces people to lean forward – lean right out of their chairs – and take a position. (p. 213)

This typical passage is atypically naïve and auteur/chauvinist inasmuch as it conflates two different definitions for active vs. passive experiences. Music and theater, like all the performing arts, are "lean-forward" if you are participating in them as a player, "lean-back" whether you are experiencing them as audience or critic. The level of engagement or personal relevance you derive from a particular work has no bearing on its nature as an active versus passive experience. Jay-Z sounds insecure when he asserts for rap an importance that transcends its experience, claiming as a distinction the quality of controversy it shares with every art form that enjoys a passionate fanbase.

I read an interesting article recently, an excerpt of Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Empire State of Mind, that presents Shawn Carter as a curated self, Jay-Z as a real-life Doonesbury Facebook avatar. Jay-Z talks repeatedly in Decoded about wanting to connect with and succeeding in connecting with those who live and grow up in the projects. A self-professed deist, he uses the language of religion both for introspection and rationalization both in his lyrics (take Lucifer and D'Evils, for example) and prose. He can be preachy, but then, if we're choosing to read an apologia, who are we to object at his occasional conversion of a confessional into a platform?

Screed – a personal or political manifesto intended to shock the author's readership (to offend or jolt an audience from complacency)

The words 'proud to be an American' were not words I'd ever thought I'd say…. Of course, it's my home, {b}ut politically, its history is a travesty. The idea of starting a show that way would've been, at any other time in my entire life up to {Obama's election as President}, completely perverse. Because America, as I understood the concept, hated my black ass. (p. 153)

As can be seen in this interview about "99 Problems", Jay-Z's an avowed believer in linguistic reappropriation. Consider this lyrical sample of the eponymic bridge that leads into the chorus (highly vulgar, but what isn't?):

"I'm like fuck critics you can kiss my whole asshole
If you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forward…
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one….

"We'll see how smart you are when the K9 come"
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one….

D.A. tried to give the nigga shaft again
Half-a-mil for bail cause I'm African…
Tryin to play the boy like he's saccharine
But ain't nothin sweet 'bout how I hold my gun
I got 99 problems being a bitch ain't one.

The protagonist is punning off various meanings of the word "bitch," to refer variously to unfounded complaints of critics, to a police dog, and then metaphorically to a poseur who can be easily toyed with.

But surely, if Carter is such an artiste, what need has he to constantly resort to common obscenity, especially highly-charged derogatory words like "nigga" and "bitch?" In the epilogue, he relates a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in which he refutes her and others' critique of much mainstream rap culture as self-hating, racist, and misogynist. For Jay-Z, such language reflects a sense of entitlement arising from his Brooklyn origins; connects him directly to and identifies his work with poor, ignorant blacks living in public housing projects; and through his and others' championing and recontextualization, deliberately elevates the words beyond their hateful origins. It is linguistic subversion, use the special privilege of his membership in the exclusive hip-hop world. This is Jay-Z as Humpty Dumpty, imparting special significance to words that mean only what he wants them to in a given instance.

Swagger - self-conscious self-confidence, bordering on arrogance

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…. 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 spaces 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. (p. 191)

This certainly matches my experience of the lyric samples reproduced here, with the possible exception of "Minority Report." Carter claims not to care how his work is critically received, deriving validation instead from its widespread popular reception and the seriousness of his stated purpose. He even freely admits the contradiction of using Decoded to demonstrate a carefully constructed, densely layered lyrical aesthetic as against his free, semi-improvisatory style of "flow" against his use of "ignorant" lyrics, heavy beats, and poppy hooks to "dumb down" otherwise serious works to assure their mass appeal. A lyrical purist like Stephen Sondheim would rip him a new one, however, since Jay-Z's catalog is not only distinctly lacking in exact rhymes and consistent meter, but with the possible exception of "Mental Exercise," fails to develop consistent imagery or build any kind of narrative arc. Where some might complain of incoherent strings of mixed metaphors, Jay-Z instead asserts the elegance of free association. Hence he can jump from western religion to Hollywood Western to Hollywood Sci-Fi to math puns to material status symbol, as he does at 1:53 into Volume 3: Life and Times of S. Carter's "Jigga My Nigga:"

See I scrambled with priests, hustle with nuns
I got the, mind capacity of a young Butch Cassidy
Niggaz get fly, let em defy gravity
Fo'-five rapidly lift your chest cavity
Streets won't let me chill
Always been a clumsy nigga, don't let me spill
Muh'fuckers wanna wet me still, I remain y'all
more than one, like five divided by four
Shit, this just the hate that's been provided by y'all
Reciprocated and multiplied by more
You likely to see Jigga in a widebody or
drop-top Bentley Azure

Whew!

You want confidence? We're talking about a guy who scored a megahit by rapping to a song from the musical Annie (and lied to obtain the rights). Jay-Z is a man whose stage name puns on the alpha-omega and whose nickname is 'Hova (as in Jehova). He can chest-thump with the best of them, and goes so far as to argue that braggadocio is understood as a form of hip-hop literary convention. As a trope that emerged from impromptu, improvisatory street battles, swagger is so endemic to rap that Carter asserts it has evolved into its own signature form/structure. Nowadays, he likens the primary purpose of "I'm the king of rock, there is none higher/Sucker MC's should call me sire" type of lyrics so prevalent in hip-hop as a formal poetic device (like a sonnet). Braggadocio has become filler content used to show off a unique rhyme structure, sense of humor, or delivery.

Decoded is Jay-Z showing off. Wow, is he ever good at it.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was undoubtedly my favorite book club book ever. To put it mildly, I am not into hip hop (I could only ever hear the glorification of violence, the incessant n-words, and the rampant disrespect for women). I am, however, totally into this book because it was enlightening, articulate, while also being rather intimate. Jay-Z really helped me see the artistry behind hip hop; I loved the poetry analogy. LOL, I'm pretty sure hip hop's resemblance to poetry also contributes to my lack of enjoyment of the genre - that shit is complicated! And I'm too lazy to take the time to decode all the meanings (heh, of either hip-hop or poetry).

Which brings me to the other thing I loved about the book - all the insight and explanation of the lyrics. OMG! I'm astounded that Jay-Z was so willing to give away so many trade secrets, so to speak. I love commentary tracks on movies, I love behind the scenes documentaries, I love Decoded because I crave knowing the deeper meaning (or heck, the plain old meaning). I deeply appreciate what he shared in both his lyrics and life.

If you're wondering whether or not I'll become a die-hard hip hop fan after reading this, I can honestly say I'll probably never be a huge fan, but I do have a more deep intellectual appreciation of the genre. Also, I've watched a few Jay-Z videos online and was able to enjoy the musicality to a new degree. At the very least, my fellow book club peeps can be happy knowing that I loved this book so much it ended up on my illustrious "like so much I purchased" shelf. Thank you, Karen!

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean, silly, but I love it.

[Chris Witt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to post some thoughts on this before I forget.

I came into this as somebody who wasn't a Jay-Z fan. Wasn't a rap fan.

To be clear, that's not the same as somebody who dislikes Jay-Z or rap. Just more that, most days, neither is on my musical radar.

I have checked out The Black Album a few years ago and really enjoyed it. And I buy maybe one or two rap albums a year, listen to a half-dozen or so... but I wouldn't consider that to qualify me as an aficionado, either.

So that's my prologue. Still here?

It honestly took my getting half-way through "Decoded" before I realized what I was getting out of it.

What I was getting wasn't a better understanding of Jay-Z's life story.

What I was getting, instead, was a better appreciation of rap.

More specifically, the craft of rap.

I'm somebody who's just about ecstatic when I get an opportunity to read a long article or listen to a long interview with somebody who wants to talk about the art of songwriting.

That sort of thing really interests me.

But it wasn't until I was nearly half-finished with "Decoded" that I realized that I had never really read/heard anybody discuss the songwriting side of rap.

Folk? Americana? Country? Pop? Rock? Sure, all of those genres and more... I've read and heard plenty about that.

But this was my first experience hearing discussions about rap - why words are chosen, construction of couplets, the use of double-meaning, onomatopoeia, ways in which Emily Dickinson's poetry is similar to rap. A lot of things I wouldn't have previously ever thought about.

All in all, good stuff and I'm definitely feeling a bit more enriched for having read it.

Would definitely recommend it for folks who are interested in that sort of thing.

If you're interested in Jay-Z's life story, this is maybe not where you want to go. I'm sure he has some book out there that is for that sort of thing, but this isn't really it.

Sure, some elements of his life story have found their way into his lyrics, so you're sort of getting that in here.

But, as the author points out, rappers are often playing a role. Like an actor or any other writer. So what you get in the lyrics may be nothing more than an abstract representation of his life, not necessarily the truth.

[Byron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dedicated hater that I am, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. But it could have been so much more than it is.

Basically, all it is is Jay-Z pontificating about whatever a song happens to be about, and then there's the actual lyrics to the song along with annotations in he which he explains things that are already more or less self-evident, Rap Genius-style.

You get the rough outlines of his backstory the same as you might get from the wiki or from a feature in a corporate magazine (which of course got it from the wiki), but it's completely bereft of any real details, and I don't mean that in the hyperbolic sense of the term completely.

You could spend 15 minutes digging up old magazine articles via the Google, some of them by dream hampton, the girl who wrote this (seemingly with little input from Jay-Z himself, at times), and find way more actual information about Jay-Z. Jay-Z, hampton, et al. realize this, and they're counting on you not having the sense to be able to access information that's quite literally sitting right there in front of you.

You see the same sort of media illiteracy at work in recent "revelations" that R. Kelly once peed on someone, and Woody Allen was once accused of being a diddler. Wait until they find out about that time Matthew Broderick killed 11 people in Ireland, or the time Eric Clapton threw a ball at his kid and the kid ended up falling out of the window.

So yeah, this is kinda useless as straight autobiography, and aspects of it don't quite pass the smell test. I still kinda dug what little this book does have to offer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I developed a newfound appreciation of Jay-Z's music (as if), but it was cool just to hear him break down "in his own words" the stories behind some of his songs, the thought process that went into putting them together, the various choices he's made in his career and what have you.

[Joshunda Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book wanting to give it five stars. I have had a love/like relationship with Jay-Z since the 1990s and when my other friends were deriding him for his misogyny, I was defending his genius as a businessman, reciting his lyrics back to them as an answer (and to their credit, they were unmoved).

The great news about this book is that it is physically one of the most stunning books I've read, the pictures and presentation are stellar and it is immensely readable. The thoughtfulness of Jay-Z with the lyrical writing of dream hampton is hard to resist. It's a book that's is as broad as it's potential to be deep. In other words, we get a mixtape of Jay-Z's world, from money to religion, politics to Oprah, with some confirmation of stunning life events that have rocked his world that he's already rapped about and footnotes to explain them just a little bit more.

Just enough to make you curious, but not enough to satiate any desire to get to know more about his inner life, which is sort of the point of a memoir. In a work as stellar and beautiful as this, I was dismayed to see Aquemini misspelled at the top of one page and then spelled correctly a couple of paragraphs later, then see Bernie Mac referred to as Bernie Mack. Those are small oversights, though. Overall, the book is the best memoir-like masterpiece that has come from hip hop during our generation (sorry, I adore "Public Service Announcement.") Small flaws are nothing compared to a designation like that.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic and not just because I have been a Jay-Z fan since Reasonable Doubt. I feel it has brought an entire new perspective to his entire catalog of music and I can't wait to re-listen to everything. I don't care if you hate hip-hop, this book is a fantastic read. Learning about his background, his situation, and how his perseverance and focus allowed him and continues to allow him to achieve everything he sets out to do. Although I don't agree with much of his politics and social commentary, it is always good to get a different perspective from someone who has experienced life in a profoundly different way than you have. Those most fascinating part of this whole book is how he breaks down many of his hit songs (and some underground favorites, and even some unreleased tracks) and learning the reasons and inspirations behind these lyrics is extremely rewarding to his fans (which I am a big one if that is not obvious by now). It's a quick read and graphically the book is beautiful from the Warhol on the front cover to the all the images through out the book. I HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone!

[Monty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to my son for suggesting I read this important book. I am a person who doesn't listen to song lyrics. I respond more to how the words sound, what the beat and syncopation are like, and how the overall sound feels to me. Some rap and hip-songs appeal to me and some don't. I know that poetry is part of this kind of genre, as is swearing, boasting and so on. But until I starting reading Decoded, I had no idea how rich and complex this music is. I can only guess that hip-hop devotees understand at least ten times more than I did as I read the book, so I can't speak for them. For me, this book opened my eyes to and gave me a taste of what hip-hop is about. It took me a couple of months to read it, though I should have taken much longer and used YouTube to check out the artists and songs Jay-Z talks about in each chapter. Even then, I would only have a small sense of the music because (as my son told me) I didn't spend time playing tunes/watching videos over and over again; I didn't soak the music into my bones and make it part of me. All I can say is that people on the outside of hip-hop music would gain much by at least scanning this important book.