Jay-Z turns 38 years old next month, and the hip-hop player and mogul has more or less settled down.
He holds two corporate jobs, as president and CEO of record companies Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella, and comprises one-half of a steady, long-term power couple. (The other half is Beyonc’eacute;, of course.) In 2003, he retired informally from making studio albums, and took the stage two years later for his “I Declare War” concert. Quite the opposite, he peacefully closed the show by putting to rest notorious beefs with other rappers, most notably fellow Brooklynite Nas.
“[I’m] the United Nations of this rap shit,” he said.
Still, it took listeners by surprise last year when Jay – “Money, Cash, Hoes” Jay – stepped out of studio retirement with an album about being older and wiser. On Kingdom Come, the hustler who used to sculpt slick rhymes from the streets rapped instead about the relatively sober life of a 30-something: “I used to play the block like that/I used to carry knots like that/now I got black cards, good credit and such/’cause I’m all grown up.”
On Tuesday, Jay-Z emerged from the studio again, this time with American Gangster, with rhymes refocused on drugs and violence. But the dark storylines aren’t lifted from his life. American Gangster was inspired by the new Ridley Scott film of the same name, and Jay raps through the eyes of real-life heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington.
Where Jay used to simply compare himself with famous gangsters from movies like “Scarface,” he has adopted Lucas’ persona to rap about a life he doesn’t live anymore. Looking through Lucas’ eyes lends Jay a new voice; the power of different perspectives is the power to tell a story – get inside it, and deliver it to the others – without having to fully live it.
“It gives Jay-Z license to talk about crime,” wrote New York Times critic Kelefa Sanneh Nov. 5. “But it also gives him a way to keep the crime talk at arm’s length.”
From the start of art’s illustrious history, artists have borrowed generously from one other, and across the disciplines – from movies, music, history and creative writing. Recycled culture is the only culture we know, and like art, culture is a canvas marked by the colors of centuries worth of innovations. It is defined by the historical back-and-forth of bright minds and revolutionaries, and the slate is never entirely blank.
In an essay published by Harper’s Magazine in February, author Jonathan Lethem argued that art comes from other art, not a vacuum.
“Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master,” Lethem wrote. “Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”
Lethem named recyclers like Bob Dylan – who has borrowed from Civil War poets and F. Scott Fitzgerald – and Shakespeare himself, whose “description of Cleopatra [is] copied nearly verbatim from Plutarch’s life of Mark Antony,” Lethem wrote.
What many would demean as plagiarism, Lethem writes, is so natural a habit of artists that, without it, art could not exist. The creature of culture grows because it consumes other culture. By rehashing, reusing and remixing what’s come before, artists are inspired to create a new future.
In his own turn, Jay – who tapped into Harlem history for American Gangster – has contributed to contemporary, recycled culture. Three years ago, hip-hop artist and producer Danger Mouse released The Grey Album, a mash-up he concocted in his free time for fun. He took one-part classic rock (The White Album, by the Beatles) and one-part rap (The Black Album, by Jay-Z) and wound up with a stunning, cross-cultural masterpiece.
Bands like The Beatles, The Who and Pink Floyd have released concept albums – built around fictitious characters – to massive critical acclaim. In 1999, Garth Brooks released an album as Chris Gaines, a fictional rock-and-roller with a soul patch. For the country superstar who has long idolized super-group KISS, I imagine Gaines was a quick, non-committal way to become an edgier version of himself.
Jay doesn’t need to pretend. He is off the streets and into midlife. By putting himself in the shoes of Lucas, he can still access – and rhyme about – the dark, hostile and dangerous world of his past. The experience doesn’t have to be his; he just has to sell it.
– Danielle Capalbo can be reached at [email protected]
