On November 16, Jay-Z will finally release his long awaited first book: Decoded. The cover image is a print of artistic genius Andy Warhol's 1984 Rorschach work, Jay was the cover's art-director. As is the Jay way, he does the memoir thing his way. Instead of a long drawn out I was born in Brooklyn, hustled...... He has decided to Decode some of his most intricate rhymes, revealing the background stories behind them, thus revealing his own personal experiences. Here's a little from Decoded:
"When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was 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. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to."
Jay continues to show that Hip-Hop can be a positive thing.
The book is a joint collobration with publisher Spiegel & Grau (a division of the Random House Publishing Group). Chris Jackson, Executive Editor of Spiegel & Grau, had this to say about the joint venture:
“This is a book that could only have come from JAY-Z. Every aspect of it reflects his style and ambition and heart. The unique structure he devised – combining intense personal narratives with revealing ‘decodings’ of some of his most powerful lyrics – underlines his central mission for the book: to use his famously layered and poetic lyrics and his one-of-a-kind life story to tell a wider story about the world he grew up in and the transformative power of hip-hop. JAY’s rigorous attention to every detail of the book, right down to the book’s jacket, which he art directed, was impressive, and the depth of his thinking – about his experiences and lyrics, but also about the creative process, the poetry of hip-hop, and the art of life – was a constant revelation. This is a book that will offer gratifying surprises and insights to both the long-time JAY-Z fan and to the reader who might meet him here for the first time.”
--Princess Carter"When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was 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. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to."
Jay continues to show that Hip-Hop can be a positive thing.
The book is a joint collobration with publisher Spiegel & Grau (a division of the Random House Publishing Group). Chris Jackson, Executive Editor of Spiegel & Grau, had this to say about the joint venture:
“This is a book that could only have come from JAY-Z. Every aspect of it reflects his style and ambition and heart. The unique structure he devised – combining intense personal narratives with revealing ‘decodings’ of some of his most powerful lyrics – underlines his central mission for the book: to use his famously layered and poetic lyrics and his one-of-a-kind life story to tell a wider story about the world he grew up in and the transformative power of hip-hop. JAY’s rigorous attention to every detail of the book, right down to the book’s jacket, which he art directed, was impressive, and the depth of his thinking – about his experiences and lyrics, but also about the creative process, the poetry of hip-hop, and the art of life – was a constant revelation. This is a book that will offer gratifying surprises and insights to both the long-time JAY-Z fan and to the reader who might meet him here for the first time.”
Sources: Roc4Life, MTV, Mrcarter.org
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