Reality Rap: The Evolution of Jay-Z's Revolution

Photo Credit: Vickey Ford for Okayplayer

On Jay-Z’s birthday, Jay Jonah Jacko takes a look at how Hov being for the people has evolved from simple raps to more progressive actions.

I’m a ‘70s baby, so yeah, I am old as f**k, but I was born into the creation of the artform known as hip-hop. No way was I old enough to attend a Kool Herc street jam, but I vividly remember the burnt out buildings and heroin addicts leaning mid-step on the Harlem sidewalks of my youth. I thought they were street performers until the day my mother yolked me up by the arm and said, “Leave those dope fiends alone, boy!”

GALLERY: Jay-Z & Vic Mensa Demolish D.C. For '4:44' Tour

This was the reality of inner-city life in the 1970s that led a young man from Jamaica to put together the American equivalent of a “sound system,” providing the foundation and inspiration for rap’s early pioneers. On the mic, MC’s would boast about their skills, about their neighborhoods, about the gear they wore, about the cars they didn’t quite own… yet. And they rapped about their aspirations. The rappers and the verses of my adolescence that was present in the ‘80s fit firmly in the reality format. Criminal Minded, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, and even De La Soul spoke of their own unique reality—the Daisy Age.

On the West Coast, Ice-T then N.W.A. upped the reality quotient sufficiently in its depiction of street life, entangling drugs, dealers and the dangerous LAPD in hardcore beats and rhymes. The Black Nationalist Movement was even represented by the underrated Brand Nubian debut, All for One. At the turn of the century, the rap world was actually a diverse landscape that could encompass the varied black experience in America.

Then came the 1990s.

Maybe it was Michael Douglas’ all-too-real portrayal of Gordon Gekko, a figurative Wall Street glutton who prophesied “greed is good,” or the pavement-to-penthouse story about a Cuban immigrant gone ham that would dominate rapper’s imaginations for two-plus-decades in Scarface—but something was lost in translation. Maybe it was “time to get n****s back for what they did to the Cold Crush,” as Jay-Z professed in “H-to-the-Izzo”. Whatever the reason and however it may have come across, it seemed that everyone got the memo—it was time to get paid, and even if you really weren’t getting paid, you better at least look like it. There were other movements afoot that would add fuel to the fire, a new format at radio was created to play kindler, gentler rap records. These would read less realistic and more aspirational. Talking about having money was cool, but talking about how you got that money wasn’t. Radio programmers got hip to rap’s “coded” language in songs and having an R&B singer on a hook could take you from having a decent song to having a national hit.

I know this because I was there.

READ: "We Always Gonna Be Good!" Jay-Z On Relationship With Kanye West

Tinkering and re-jigging artists’ raw thoughts and emotions into a sellable three-minute-and-30 second ad to coax you to spend $17.99 on an album was my M.O. Many built a sturdy career in this era with this strategy, while a few built whole empires. Most notably, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who, along with his Hitmen team of producers became the poster child for this strategy, blazing remixes for everyone from MC Lyte to Method Man and everyone in-between. He would go on to build Bad Boy Records, literally in the image of the remix. Give them the reality of life on the record and then remix their aspirations, leaving no stone unturned, was the goal accomplished by Puff and co. throughout the ‘90s. Whether you were a fan of Bad Boy or not, history tells no lies, and Puff would go on to “remix” a certain spirit’s brand that had been lagging in sales for years, turn his “brand ambassador” appointment into an ownership stake and ride it into the hip-hop billionaires club.

But, truthfully, that’s all a story for another time… We’re here to talk about another empire built out of the 90’s raw aspirational brand of hip-hop: the empire of Jay-Z.

Source: TIDAL

Reasonable Doubt was released in 1996 by a somewhat new artist named Jay-Z. I say “somewhat new” because a lot of folks were aware of him through his more seasoned and better-known peer, Jaz-O. Purveyors of the art form instantly knew Reasonable Doubt was a classic. The business-at-large did not. No major label had offered a deal for the record or the artist and the highest chart position it reached on the Billboard album charts was #23.

As a brief point of reference, only one Jay-Z record post-Reasonable Doubt in his entire career would chart any lower than #1 on any U.S. chart. He has released 13 albums to date.

Reasonable Doubt was really a stunning debut for hip-hop insiders. The single, “Dead Presidents,” showcased great verbal dexterity, allegory and a flow that felt like you may have been listening to John Coltrane had he been an MC. “Ain’t No N***a” was a fun, s**t-talking duet that put fellow Brooklynite Foxy Brown on the map. And as a third single, “Can’t Knock The Hustle,” took an old R&B sample of Meli’sa Morgan’s “Fool’s Paradise” and allowed the burgeoning Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, Mary J. Blige, to do the honors of demolishing the track in a beautifully impactful way. A video with Mary featured alongside Jay could have been the difference between light play on BET and heavy rotation on MTV, but a rumor that Uptown / MCA, Mary’s parent label at the time, thought so little of Jay as a young upstart that they wouldn’t clear her for the video shoot fearing association with a known drug dealer would derail Mary’s crossover appeal.

It was a gamble by Uptown / MCA and they lost, but as many have come to understand about Shawn Corey Carter, he rarely loses and mostly learns.

Other than Jay’s obvious talent, Reasonable Doubt was a quiet triumph for the streets. As the R&B-rap genre grew and mainstream outlets ate it up, gritty, real-time tales of the streets and the things young men of color had to do to survive them were losing their place in the rap narrative. Women, champagne, cars and lavish parties were the order of the day. Jay-Z told these stories and other tales in a way better than his contemporaries. His brand of “no nonsense” reality rap cut through in a big way and the fact that he and his partners, Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, formed Roc-a-Fella Records proved that they were willing to bet on themselves, which made the story even more compelling. The idea that three young brothers put their own money up to make, promote, market and distribute an album in 1996 was as audacious as a young black man starting a music streaming service to compete with Spotify, Apple Music, etc. in current times.

Follow me here, we’re just getting started.

The album was so successful that rap’s most storied institution, Def Jam, cut a joint venture deal with the Roc. For layfolk, a joint venture basically says, “any money spent or made is split evenly between the two companies.” It wouldn’t take long for that partnership to be put to the test. A tale told by a colorful video of Dame Dash justly berating Def Jam staff for swagger-jacking, criminal offense in ‘90s hip-hop, found the Roc putting its foot down, fighting for every inch and mile of success it had earned. For whatever distractions Def Jam may have caused, it certainly didn’t seem to slow Roc-a-Fella’s progress. The next record Jigga put out, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, debuted at #3 on the Billboard Top 200. Featuring production mostly from Puffy and his team of Hitmen, In My Lifetime was Jay’s coming out party.

From the inside of the game, rap’s tastemakers saw it as an attempt to cash in on the curry “jiggy” movement in hip-hop, championed, of course, by Combs. A few standout cuts from DJ Premier kept the streets watching, but a Babyface collabo complete with a Hype Williams and bright pastel suits almost derailed the MC everyone saw as the legitimate counter-punch to what was becoming the saturated bling era of hip-hop. As I said earlier, Shawn Carter rarely loses and always learns, so when his follow-up LP, In My Lifetime, Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life dropped, it would be a return to familiar terrain. With production from Ruff Ryders centerpiece Swizz Beatz, DJ Premier, Mark The 45 King, who’s loop of Annie’s “Hard Knock Life” would silence critics from the streets and cubicles alike, while exposing Hova to the mainstream world on his own terms.

The album would debut at #1 on the Billboard charts and would officially begin Hovito’s reign in hip-hop. To this day, it is still his best selling record at 10 million plus.

Source: Instagram

His achievements are too many to list and quite honestly they aren’t really that interesting to me. What he has done “for the culture” far outweighs the awards, truthfully. I must admit, though, every time Jigga puts out an album, I loathe hearing about another way in which he “got money” or “moved weight”. I was always more interested in the principles of his former career that he employed in his new one and in that regard I always viewed him as an extremely impactful cultural figure. Long before a young state senator decided to challenge an incumbent for the Senate seat in Illinois, I actually believed that Jay-Z could be the great cultural unifier where political figures always failed. His upbringing in the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn gave him a firsthand view of the great urban experiment, his success in the underworld gave him the required business acumen to understand how America really works and his ambition would lead him to places where he could make a real difference.

But that didn’t happen.

There were more albums, more tours and more money to be made, so he made it. There was growth as an artist for sure, but that was generally mired in the growth of zeroes in the bank account. And really, who could blame him? I’ve spent most of my professional career wanting and hoping for more from artists, as the famed negro poet Rick Ross once said, “She wasn’t witchu shootin’ in the gym!” Subtext being that until you walk a mile in another man’s shoes you don’t have the right to make any demand of any kind… shut the f**k up! So, I, too, danced to all the songs and karaoked along, rapping, “And I wish I never met her at all,” like the rest of us, working out our disappointments, triumphs, setbacks and deferred dreams, dancing and drinking to the music of our times by our people.

We knew something didn’t feel quite right about it: the misogyny, the ruthless ambition, the use of the word “n****r” as a term of endearment. But these were our people expressing things we had all felt at one point or another, so we sang, drank, danced and waited. We waited for someone in that landscape to tell us things we already knew. A Tribe Called Quest told us, Mos Def & Talib Kweli as Black Star told us, L-Boogie as Ms. Lauryn Hill told us, but what we really needed was a glitch in the Matrix to not just tell us, but to prove it! As targeted roll-out campaigns grew more complex and “organic” became a buzzword in marketing meetings, a political stance on an issue could be seen as a savvy partnership on par with the right quest feature. Shit got complicated.

Even in the most complicated of times, Jay-Z remained on the outside looking in, appearing very much like “a guy” in the best Joe Pesci movie sense. Who knows what happened between Jay, Dame and Biggs that would end such a fruitful relationship that had accomplished so much? Who knows what happened with R. Kelly that brought an abrupt end to the Best of Both Worlds Tour? Who knows what happened before that elevator ride with the Knowles sisters? Who knows what happened between him and his wife, Beyoncé? I’ll tell you one thing I do know, Shawn Carter rarely loses, but always learns…

Which brings me to his new release, 4:44.

This body of work begins the real evolution of revolution that hip-hop threatened to be in those nascent years. This body of work makes good on the promise I had for the artform to be a power base for its people. Jazz obviously captured the hearts and minds of the world, but hip-hop has done the same and can be an economic building block as well. Don’t believe me? Ask Dr. Dre or Sean Combs or Nelly or Pharrell or even, yes, Eminem.

If James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry and Nina Simone were the scribes, poets, singers and playwrights of the Civil Rights Movement — then this body of work could be considered the soundtrack for the Birth of a New Nation.

A Nation where honoring your woman is what’s really good.

A Nation where respecting a person’s chosen gender and sexual preference is not political correctness, it just is.

A Nation where good credit becomes as important as “ballin’”.

A Nation where the family is held more valuable than the self.

A Nation where information is just as important as “hustle”.

That would be a new nation indeed.

Rebellion is ingrained in American culture, but it has sadly been reduced to clichéd movie lines, beautifully shot gun battles and family betrayal. Put simply, it equates to a glorified death. Rarely does rebellion look or sound like economic empowerment, gender fluidity, financial independence or just keeping your d**k in your pants and focusing on building your home, your block, your school, your neighborhood, your town, your state, your bank account, and yes, your credit.

For rappers attempting to “dethrone” Jay-Z, let the record state that the boy from Brooklyn gave up that mantle a long time ago. Nowadays, it seems that Jay is more interested in being a truth-teller and his truths may be more valuable than a hip-hop crown when all is said and done. Rewind the tape even further back to a time when Jay-Z released an album called The Dynasty that featured all the important players of Roc-a-Fella at the time. Memphis Bleek, Freeway and the largely underrated Beanie Siegel. That album featured some real standouts, plus all of the important players at Roc-a-Fella at the time, but I don't think I'm talking out of turn by saying it wasn't quite the stuff "dynasties" are made out of.

As I'm reminded of that project on Jay's 48th birthday, I sit here and contemplate all of what Shawn Carter the Man has been through and accomplished. The "dynasty" that he was looking for back then now seems a little premature—the combination of his wife, three babies and sister-in-law look a lot more up for the challenge of nation building, directing people towards truth and defeating negativity and oppression that affects the masses.

By all indications, Jay-Z's takeover has already begun, and boy are we in for an exhilarating ride.

Jay Jonah Jacko is a Harlem-based scribe and industry veteran.