Word [...July 6]

"Jay: The only time your relationship means anything to people that don't give a shit about you, is when you get together, have a baby or break-up. All the in-between is bullshit to cause something else to happen. They're trying to fuck your shit up. Why even feed into the gossip?" XXL, 2006

Word [...June 16]

"You've got kids that inherited stuff from their parents...They don't appreciate it because it was no work; there's no A to Z, it's just Z. To me, you need somewhere to start, somewhere to be like, "Man, I ain't never going back to not being able to pay my light bill, my stomach growling, eating cereal at night, peanut butter and jelly off the spoon, mayonnaise sandwiches." This is real. I'm talking from a place where if groceries came and we got to put bananas on the cereal, it was a treat. That was the shit that you can't fathom." May 2003, Entertainment Weekly

Word [May 21-June 2]

Tidbit About the new Rocawear Campaign

Ciara was toasted by Jay-Z and Young Jeezy Thursday night in New York as the Atlanta singer celebrated being named the new face of the Roc-A-Wear ladies' line. Ciara follows in the footsteps of Naomi Campbell and actress Zoe Saldana. The new campaign will be titled "I Will Not Lose" and feature testimonials by a number of personalities who've overcome various hardships, including Amy Steele, the editor-in-chief of Virginia Tech campus newspaper The Collegiate Times. ...

via MTV.Com

PROPS

REASONABLE DOUBT
A decade after its release, Jay-Z's opus stands as raps most riveting reflection of a hustler's life.


All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. But all I need to know about the grind, I learned from Reasonable Doubt.

And I'm not alone. When Shawn Carter stepped to the mic over 10 years ago to record his debut album, his talent and audacity established a template for a whole generation of hustlers turned rappers who crawled out of the woodwork and pored over Jay-Z's slingin' curriculum. Which isn't to say they didn't earn their stripes in the street--it's just that you wouldn't know it from their lyrics, which have regurgitated Jay's vernacular, insights, and observations so many times over that his once groundbreaking images are now hip hop cliches.

At the time of Reasonable Doubt's release, Biggie, Boot Camp, and Mobb Deep ruled with stories of block wars and life lived in a four-by-four grid. Just like Nirvana made hair metal obsolete, Jay's don persona, combined with his sheer rhyimg skill and bravado, made other rappers look like bottom-feeders. On "Friend or Foe" and other tracks, he detailed out-of-state operations that clearly identified himself as highter on the food chain than your favorite rapper. He lived on a scale that was previously unimaginable. "Partna, I'm still spendin' money from '88!" he announced on "Dead Presidents II," then pointed to his knowledge of the finer things in life on numbers like "Feelin' It" and "Cashmere Thoughts."

It wasn't just his Big Willie-ness-excuse me, William-ness--however, that set Jay apart. While Biggie and Tupac admitted to the suicidal ambitons of a rider under pressure, Jay stepped back from the glory of the game and revealed the emotional toll of ugliness. He allowd himself to be vulnerable on songs like "Regrets" and "D'Evils," where the wrestles with the consequences of money and violence on life-long friendships. With "Can I Live," it's themes of isolation and suffocation paranoia capture feelings of desperation with an honestly rarely seen in rap.

Unfortunately, his sons and grandsons trace his design without understanding the underlying structural integrity that makes Reasonable Doubt stand tall ten years after it release. And listening to them gets te-di-ous, so young' uns, please, for the sake of hip hop, keep one eye open, like CBS.

written by Noah Callah-Bever for Vibe Magazine