← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
BONUS: Ari on Jay-Z’s path from projects to Wall St, MLK & Blueprint Breakdown (1996-2026)
00:19:35
In this podcast extra, news anchor and music journalist Ari Melber delivers a special report on Jay-Z’s life & career, drawing on the rapper’s dense lyrics, his classic albums “Reasonable Doubt” and “The Blueprint,” and original reporting on the history, culture and politics informing how those albums resonate today — amid their anniversaries and the Yankee Stadium shows. From New York’s poverty and crime in the 1990s to today’s promises of a better future by tech and business elites, the report probes the rigged stakes and double standards facing working people and hip hop. Melber has reported extensively on hip hop on his program, “The Beat,” including a 2022 breakdown of a Jay Z verse that the rapper released as “Hov Did.”
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- [00:00]
Jay Z
Hey guys.
- [00:01]
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- [00:29]
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- [00:58]
Narrator/Documentary Host
We're hearing familiar claims these days. Elites declaring the economy is better than it looks and technology will help us all. Stock market has been rising.
- [01:08]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
Society will have more production.
- [01:11]
Narrator/Documentary Host
I think we're headed for a future of amazing abundance. There's a big catch. Elites were making the same vows 30 years ago. If you owned stocks in 1995, congratulations are probably in order because it was Wall Street's best year in recent memory. Strong growth, low inflation, new jobs, higher wages, the strongest American economy in a generation. The market's at an all time high. That's the kind of scenario I like that I think takes us higher. It's like living in the future. A future now available on America Online. It's a recurring capitalist promise. Your future payoff is just around the corner. Well, in our special report tonight, we dig into the gap between the rich and the promises and real life and the hustle. Because first of all, even a rising stock market doesn't help most people. Half the population has just 1% of the stock market. The rich control most of it. It's the kind of drastic American inequality visible near Manhattan's famed Wall street itself, which is just miles from the far poorer projects of the Lower east side and Bed Stuy Brooklyn. That environment, Brooklyn, 1996 is where our story begins. A dense community with over a million people on welfare at the time, a 35% poverty rate, a jobless crisis nearing 10%. Murders surging that decade. Those were conditions that Rudy Giuliani rode into office and that a 26 year old Shawn Carter overcame to become the platinum artist, Obama confidant and billionaire mogul Jay Z, who people know today. I like to think Mr. Carter and I understand each other. Nobody who met us as younger men would have expected us to be where we are today.
- [03:04]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
For too long we were excluded from the American dream and now we have a chance to be a part of the American dream, to make history happen.
- [03:12]
Narrator/Documentary Host
We try to prop open those doors of opportunity so that it's a little easier for those who come up behind us to succeed.
- [03:18]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
You're starting to see the power of our vote. He made it mean something for the first time for a lot of people. Having someone in office who understands how powerful our voice can be is very important.
- [03:30]
Narrator/Documentary Host
That's the success at the top. You know, at the top of the mountain you can see everything except the path up, which usually has the most to teach. And Jay Z's musical path started uphill. Every record label passed on his pitch. The big companies that trade on Wall street didn't see a market for that unknown rapper just a few miles away. And Jay rejected the industry's attempted rejection. He launched his own Roc a Fella label, dropping a debut album that now is hitting a 30 year anniversary. Reasonable doubt, a reference to the legal standard to beat conviction. And a likely nod to the high burden of proof that Jay Z faced trying to make it as a black businessman in America. Given the limits on available choices, as he cited in the album's opening at my arraignment screaming all us blacks got is sports and entertainment. Until we even facing America's tilted legal and economic systems, Jay was distilling those choices. Where he grew up, the main tickets out of poverty and drugs were sports and entertainment, which is why you can't knock the hustle. The themes rang true in Brooklyn and ended up resonating with a whole generation of people in other places with different experiences. And as a poet, Jay captured hard truth with words. The album songs about drugs and hustling were largely warnings, not advertisements. Over Alan Toussaint's gospel chords, Jay details the corrupting evils of drugs and money fracturing a childhood friendship. We used to fight for building blocks. Now we fight for blocks with buildings that make a killing the closest of friends. When we first started he raps but grew apart as the money grew and soon grew black hearted. The song shows rivals in the drug game as he, the character there kidnaps a friend's lover to try to track him down.
- [05:28]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
My hand around the collar, feet in A cheese she said to taste the dollars was so I fed her 50s who could ever foresee we used to stay up all night at slumber parties Now I'm trying to rock his to sleep don't cry, it is the bee in time I take away your miseries and make it mine.
- [05:45]
Narrator/Documentary Host
It's a dark parable and dense. From those innocent slumber parties to a life of crime, we hear about this hustler feeding his friend's woman money cheese so she will rat out her own man. The lyrics do ask for forgiveness but offer no retreat from hustling. Now some critics have missed the nuance over the years, attacking art for depicting life just as some attack reporters for reporting tough realities. Shoot the messenger and that double standard is applied more to rap than movies or video games or even, say, today's vulgar politicians. Confusing artistic commentary for glorification is a common misinterpretation. Do you listen to music or just skim through it? And Jay later addressed confused critics directly on his Blueprint album, saying life stories told through rap. They acting like I sold you crack like I told you sell drugs no hov did that so hopefully you won't have to go through that now his debut album that I'm telling you about wasn't all sinister either. Like the blues before it, Jay Z's austere hip hop mined pain for perspective, grit as a bulletproof license to enjoy good times when they come There were duets with Foxy Brown and Mary J. Blige and the ultimate CO sign from Brooklyn's reigning hip hop leader at the time, Notorious B.I.G. where the King and the newcomer go bar for bar in Brooklyn's finest
- [07:11]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
Aren't you crazy big little bit of rhymes can play me I'm from Marcy I'm varsity chump you JV Jay Z my
- [07:20]
Jay Z
bet stop flows delicious delicious three wishes made my road to riches from 62 to gym stars my mom's dishes Graham chopping police vidakking bees at my doors
- [07:30]
Narrator/Documentary Host
knocking Jay was boasting about telling lies that sound true and pioneering a cold detached flow that carried both sob stories and those joyous flexes on the funk percussion of cashmere thoughts. Jay's wordplay mixes opulent brags with a kind of self aware whimsy wrapped beef seared and smothered in only the finest mustard
- [07:55]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
18 karat gold pen. When it hits the sheets words worth a million like I'm wrapping them through platinum teeth I got the great Poupon you've been warned cause all beef returned well done filet mignon the dawn. Smell it dawn on my breath as
- [08:09]
Narrator/Documentary Host
I Beyond sweet Wrapping that success into existence. That hustle on wax reflected the culture for those who lived it and opened up a world to those who didn't. Here's how one of Jay Z's lifelong friends put it.
- [08:24]
Jay Z
I think reasonable doubt represents that culture of what we are, who we are. And guess what? The world is made up. The good, the bad, the ugly. Some of you might like it, some of you might don't. Some of you might understand it, some don't. But that was a language that we know a lot of people spoke
- [08:44]
Narrator/Documentary Host
and still speak. It landed at the time. Music that's hot in its moment is a hit. When it's hot years later, you have a classic. Anything beyond that is literally timeless. And we can see this music connecting today. Jay Z announcing album anniversary shows that sold out Yankee Stadium in hours. Sellout arenas, they call that getting dome. With a long waiting list. There was 1.6 million people in the queue. I'm number 55,000 plus.
- [09:16]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
First of all, I want to thank my Kineck, the most important person.
- [09:19]
Narrator/Documentary Host
With all due respect, Jay Z has added a third show at Yankee Stadium after the first two sold out. You gotta pardon Jay for selling out the stadium in a day though. Concerts celebrate the bookends of those two albums. Reasonable doubt that I've been discussing where jay Z spent 1990s previewing A Life he'd actually go on to achieve. From hustler to businessman and this installment five years later, one of the greatest albums of its time. The Blueprint. Debuting at number one, it was offered as the undeniable execution of Jay's design. Reminding everyone I told you 96 that I came to take this and I did. He reminisces about lost innocence, the price of success, personal growth and winning at all costs. This album was a full court press claiming the throne for this victory tour of sorts. Myth making via autobiography where he said if you haven't heard, I'm Michael, Magic and Bird all rolled into one because none got more flows than young plus got more flows to come. Bars he also used that album to unload a key blow in his clash with rival Queens rapper Nas. This was a pre streaming era when rap battles could gestate for years and then he turned vulnerable, sharing the sadness of a broken relationship. It was on that album where Jay memorably said he couldn't be seen shedding tears, so he had to make the song cry. And he used the record to tweak the establishment. He was joining blasting white moguls for exploiting black artists creations. And across several tracks now a big shot, Jay Z relentlessly addressed that fixture in hip hop. The hater
- [11:07]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
youngest Ice Grillin me. Oh, you not feeling me fine it costs you nothing pay me no mind Look I'm on my grind cousin ain't got time for frontin sensitive belts Y' all all need hugs.
- [11:20]
Narrator/Documentary Host
Jay posing the question, how tough are you if you need a hug? The bravado was served with that kind of panache. Jay almost acting like, yes, the truth hurts, but that's reality. He's not out to hurt you. He could even be magnanimous to detractors, telling folks, even though y' all hate I love y' all mofos Friend or foe y' all all my mofos. The album advancing themes of equity and entrepreneurship that Jay would be pressing over the next 25 years. At the time, remember, his quest to be viewed and become a CEO and owner was seen as kind of radical, if not delusional. Nowadays, of course, there's wide concern about predatory practices by both the legacy music and entertainment companies and these tech platforms. Creatives now routinely focus on ownership and their rights. And IP and the Hollywood strike and AI's encroachment has at times united Artists to also have fans care about these seemingly sometimes esoteric issues. But 25 years ago, Jay was leading that charge. He was rapping about doing it for the culture, combating the early 2000s shady music industry run by vultures and with a bit of economics, noting that people in the industry didn't like how he could basically raise the price of labor, of art, of the status quo.
- [12:50]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
Label owners hate me. I'm raising the status quo up. I'm overcharging for what they did to the Cold Crush.
- [12:56]
Narrator/Documentary Host
Jay demanding something like back pay in the name of exploited artists. As Cold Crush rapper Grandmaster Kaz later recounted
- [13:06]
Jay Z
what they did to the Cold Crush. So basically what you're saying is that you're robbing from the rich in the name of the poor. Okay, you ain't robbing from the rich to give to the poor, but you robbing from the rich in the name of the poor. All people that you didn't pay. I'm taking that money, I'm making you pay me for that.
- [13:27]
Narrator/Documentary Host
Jay had begun closing the distance between those places that are worlds apart in New York, from Wall street to the projects, invoking the past exploitation as leverage, as fuel, as a lesson learned and as a hustler and a capitalist, Jay was doing this not based on charity. Not one of those soothing Hollywood movies where black people are supposed to selflessly volunteer the labor or capital that the system failed to provide. No, Jay was intent on making money off making music. And the industry had been hustling artists forever. Now it faced a hustling artist who knew the score. And history went beyond the music industry. American racism and legal oppression shaped public housing and poverty and policing. Reality is, Jay lived and narrated, but he doesn't lean on some Jim Crow lecture throughout these albums. He doesn't have to. There is a view of the hustle as winning more than overcoming, where the struggle is deployed as the edge. Because it might make you stronger than people from somewhere else,
- [14:36]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
but you will respect me. Simple as that. Oh, I got no problem going back. I'm representing for the seat where Rosa Parks sat Where Malcolm X was shot when Martin Luther was poppin. So off we go. Let the trumpets blow and hold on because the driver, oh, the mission is a pro. The gorgeous back.
- [15:02]
Narrator/Documentary Host
It's a long ways to be, as he put it there, the driver of the mission. Long ways from that to the passengers, the black ladies on the back of buses, as he would later put it. I'll come back to that. But like any great storyteller, Jay brings you right into the room with him in these albums. And then he still manages to protect some mystery, as artists do. I'll tell you half the story. The rest you fill it in. Long as the villain win, he's noted. And that could be a reference to the parts of the street which literally cannot be told in public, as Even the venerable 60 Minutes learned when they profiled Jay a decade after the blueprint. During the 1980s, the Marcy Projects were
- [15:46]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
among the most dangerous places in America.
- [15:48]
Narrator/Documentary Host
Jay Z often writes songs about his time, including the day he shot his older brother in the shoulder. Confused, I just closed my young eyes and squeezed.
- [15:58]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about that on tv.
- [16:01]
Narrator/Documentary Host
That just. It's not cool. Okay, you know, that's a bit over the line. There's that half of the story he's not telling. Filling it in can also be up to the listener's interpretation. The other half of the story can also mean a life yet to be lived. But whatever part Jay was telling has been illuminating across these albums. His lyrics really translate in both directions, revealing the streets to civilian listeners who don't know that world and bringing Wall street blueprints to these communities. Denied, redlined, and often legally shut out of that elite system that was just a few Miles away. Thirty years later, it has aged well. Jay Z pairing a chart topping artistic career with that business vision, launching major companies, partnering with Fortune 50 corporations, turning himself into one of 12 black billionaires in the US and Jay's rise is what helped elevate hip hop to heights unimaginable for the elites who smugly dismissed it as noise or a fad or a crime soundtrack with no redeeming value. And he did that often by confronting the barriers in his music and lyrics, not pandering. He's channeled truths that resonate both within rap's community of origin, but also far beyond it. Across the United States, hip hop is played and quoted in boardrooms, newsrooms, weddings and events. Just as pop music has absorbed hip hop's sound and samples and sense of cool, rap is also embraced by young people globally, more than most U.S. exports. That's partly because culture is deeper than politics. It can convey humanity and values and joy and help people see each other better, even shaping the lens we use to view life itself. So Jay has reached this point where he's now rocking world stages, programming the super bowl halftime show, running several companies, hitting these billionaire summits. And that's a long ways from where he started a path that may have sounded delusional back then, which is a contrast. He narrates in an imagined dialogue with his psychiatrist, who is convinced that Jay Z's dreams are some kind of fantasy and he's lost it.
- [18:25]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
Cracks that across the line between real life and fantasy. Went from wall rim to ballroom undercovers to covers if you believe in that sort of love the screws need adjusting well or no justice and black ladies on the back of buses I'm the immaculate conception of rapper hustlers.
- [18:41]
Narrator/Documentary Host
Jay recounts the quack then interrupting with a prescription for those supposed delusions. And then he wraps the rebuttal. From the doctor's view, it takes a
- [18:51]
Jay Z (Rap Verses)
lot to shock us but you being so prosperous is preposterous. How can this snappy headed boy from off the project be the apple of America's obsession? You totally disconnected with reality. Don't believe in dreams. Since when did black men become kings and
- [19:07]
Narrator/Documentary Host
don't believe in dreams? That choice presented as reality or dreams. But Jay's dream was to change his reality from gang warring to Warren undercovers to magazine covers. Nikwack asks how black men could become kings. They can be kings of finance or kings like America's artistic royalty. And by citing black ladies on the back of buses, I mentioned we'd come back to that. Jay is unspooling layers of meaning. A black man becoming King, like Dr. King himself and what he envisioned for black men and women. He had a dream, not a delusion. And like a poet, a playwright or the bard himself, Jay's dialogue captures several views at once. The incredulous voice of the system don't believe in dreams? Since when did black men become kings? But also the hustler's triumphant rejoinder, all the more powerful because Jay offers it both through his art and through the reality of the life he's lived. A prosperous hustler who made his own luck in a world of no justice. There is wordplay, but he's not playing believe in dreams, dismiss the haters. And decades on the crowds are still
- [20:31]
Podcast Host/Nicole Wallace
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