‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: Jay-Z, in the Past Tense

60 Songs That Explain the ’90s is back for its final stretch run (and a brand-new book!). Join The Ringer’s Rob Harvilla as he treks through the soundtrack of his youth, one song (and embarrassing anecdote) at a time. Follow and listen for free on Spotify. In Episode 117 of 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s—yep, you read that right—we’re covering Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem).” Read an excerpt below.

I’ve always wanted to try this. We’re going in reverse. We’re gonna make like The Irishman or the last Indiana Jones movie. We’re gonna de-age Jay-Z, and perhaps de-age ourselves.

The Jay-Z album 4:44. Came out in 2017. I do believe that I declared on the internet that 4:44 was the best album of 2017, and I stand by that. That song is “The Story of O.J.” The shrewd pause there, the negative space, the wit, the casual audacity of Jay-Z not rapping for two full seconds, the bottomless charisma of that OK. There are entire, respectable, decades-long rap careers without a single moment that electric.

Magna Carta Holy Grail. 2013. Jay-Z all rapping about his art collection on an album first available only via a special app on your Samsung phone. Jay-Z rapping this song “Picasso Baby” for six straight hours at Pace Gallery in New York for a performance art video costarring Marina Abramovic, Judd Apatow, Rosie Perez, Adam Driver, Taraji P. Henson, Alan Cumming, Jim Jarmusch, and on and on and on. I was working at SPIN magazine when this album came out, and I had to work basically the whole Fourth of July weekend because of Jay-Z. It’s possible I’m still pissed about that. You own a few Rothkos, congratulations. Keep me out of it; it’s a national holiday.

The Blueprint 3. 2009. That song, “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” one of Jay’s signature Get Off My Lawn moments, “Death of Auto-Tune” is on this record, but you can’t win ’em all. You see this video from early February, this media demonstration of New York City’s new, automated, side-loading garbage truck next to a giant sign reading “The future of trash is here” and soundtracked by “Empire State of Mind,” the Jay-Z smash-hit single featuring Alicia Keys? Did you hear that very faint applause, for this garbage truck demonstration set to what is somehow Jay-Z’s only no. 1 single as the lead artist? New York! These streets will make you feel brand-new! Big lights will inspire you to invent garbage truck technology that Columbus, Ohio, has been using for many years now! The thing that automatically dumps your garbage can into the garbage truck? We got that already, in Ohio. I’m unclear what the future, what the innovation, is here, exactly, unless the innovation is Jay-Z: “The future of trash” is just playing Jay-Z songs while you pick up the trash. If so, fair enough! That’s a good idea. God bless! Buy another Rothko with that check, Jay!

American Gangster. 2007. Now we’re talking. “Ignorant Shit.” The Isley Brothers sample! The sumptuousness! The ignorance! This song does make my personal top-20 list of best Jay-Z songs. This shit might make my top five. Jay-Z rapping about how smart he is and how he’s so smart that sometimes he raps about lowest-common-denominator shit because that’s the smart play. This is my favorite Jay-Z mode. Explanatory Jay-Z. Meta Jay-Z. That sounds sarcastic, but I’m serious. I love the “plus” in fuck shit ass bitch trick plus ice. I don’t know why, but I love that plus. Excuse my language. If my mom calls again, I still ain’t home.

Kingdom Come. 2006. I forgot he literally rapped 30 is the new 20 on this record, on a song called “30 Something” when he was almost 40. I was closing in on 30 myself when this record came out, and I remember playing this song and thinking, Oh, no!

The Black Album. 2003. Jay-Z’s ostensible retirement album. Yeah. The Black Album is my favorite, though. I’ve always felt vaguely corny for saying that, but I’m through apologizing. “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” “99 Problems,” “What More Can I Say.” Come on. And this one, too. “Moment of Clarity.” This is where Meta Jay-Z peaks. I dumb down for my audience to double my dollars is a wild thing to say out loud, even on your ostensible retirement album. Jay-Z talks a lot about how he’s so smart and he’s such a technically superior rapper that he has to hide it from us, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be as successful, and we wouldn’t be able to handle it. According to Jay-Z, if Jay-Z ever went Full Jay-Z on us, it would be the audio equivalent of staring at the sun. Sometimes he raps stuff like “30 is the new 20” for your own protection.

The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse. 2002. “’03 Bonnie & Clyde.” Hearing Jay-Z and Beyoncé refer to themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend, awwwww, that’s nice. That’s romantic. Is it evident, even here, even this early, even on this song, that she’s going to eclipse him artistically? It might already be evident here. The Blueprint 2 is too long. It’s a double album. This is the Jay-Z record so long that if you listen to it at the pool, Jay-Z the Lifeguard has to blow his whistle and call for a rest period halfway through it. You see that other photo of Jay-Z and Beyoncé jumping off a boat into the ocean, and Jay-Z has taken a very strange belly-flop-type angle? Also a great candid Jay-Z photo. Think about that photo the next time you hear Jay-Z rap the word motherfuckers.

Motherfuckers say that I’m foolish, I only talk about jewels
Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?
See, I’m influenced by the ghetto you ruined
The same dude you gave nothin’, I made somethin’ doin’

The Blueprint. 2001. Now we’re talking. “Renegade.” Produced by and famously costarring Eminem. Eminem produced “Moment of Clarity,” too. Great rapport, those two. I’m tempted to request a full-length Watch the Throne–type Jay-Z and Eminem album, but we’d really need an intellectual lifeguard for that shit. “The same dude you gave nothin’, I made somethin’ doin’.” That’s an even better Jay-Z line than “I’m about to call the paparazzi on myself.” Holy shit. I honestly forgot how many albums Jay-Z had when I committed to this bit. This is pretty exhausting even if you leave out R. Kelly and Linkin Park. Almost there!

The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. 2000. “This Can’t Be Life.” Kanye West’s first time producing Jay-Z. The Scarface verse on “This Can’t Be Life.” That’s what you want. But it took us this long, going in reverse, to even get to Jay-Z even credibly reminiscing about a moment when Jay-Z might’ve been mortal, and vulnerable, and not yet the focal point of hip-hop. The word failure just does not sound right coming out of this person’s mouth, but that’s what makes the song work. That’s what makes the song cry.

You know I thug ’em, fuck ’em, love ’em, leave ’em
’Cause I don’t fuckin’ need ’em
Take ’em out the hood,
Keep ’em lookin’ good
But I don’t fuckin’ feed ’em

Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter. 1999. There are rappers—great rappers, canonical rappers, pantheon rappers—who reach their full potential only if you squint your ears and forget the literal words they’re saying. The words are immaterial. Only the rhythm, the percussion matters. Jay-Z is not one of those rappers, but “Big Pimpin’” is not a song that requires lyrical dexterity. This is extra-ignorant shit, and it’s maybe not a coincidence that this is where he quadrupled his dollars.

Technically, “Big Pimpin’” is the ’90s. But only technically. This record, Vol. 3, came out on December 28, 1999. That is a wild release date, first of all, even before you factor in the potential Y2K element, but your friends here at 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s are taking the position that an album that came out four days before the literal end of the ’90s is not really the ’90s. We stand by that decision.

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In his book, Decoded, Jay-Z writes, “Even in a song about pushing pleasure to the limit, I can’t help but make the connection between the ‘big pimpin’’ and the work that makes it possible—which takes us from the cars, women, and the alcohol, the sun, the mansion, and Carnival—and brings us back to the streets, the corner of the block, the coke, and the potential for a long prison bid hanging over me like a cloud. The recklessness of the pleasure—the selfish craziness of pimping—matches the recklessness of the work.”

Jay-Z, then as now, is constantly at pains to remind us that he used to deal drugs. Not in a self-congratulatory, triumphant way, or at least Jay’s not as triumphant about it as some other pantheon rappers we could mention. Pusha T, for example. Yes, Jay-Z doesn’t sound as self-congratulatory as Pusha T sounds when Pusha T is reminding us that he used to deal drugs. Used to. Heh. OK, Pusha T, then as now, raps like he’s dealing drugs literally while rapping about dealing drugs. You know Mitch Hedberg, the great stand-up comedian? I love Mitch Hedberg, and I love Pusha T also, and Pusha T always struck me as a very slight variation on a classic Mitch Hedberg line: I used to deal drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

But Jay-Z’s music, then as now, is escapist. It is pure escapism. It’s not escapist for you, the listener, the customer. Jay-Z’s music is escapist for Jay-Z.

We made it. 1998. The album is Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life. Vol period space numeral two dot dot dot space Hard Knock Life. The song is “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem).” We made it. He made it. Look where he used to be. Look where he is now. Here we have another Jay-Z song where the words don’t have to matter. The words do matter, but they don’t gotta. The words are just a bonus. The rhythm, the percussion, the swagger is all you really need. 1998. This is Jay-Z’s third album. Hard Knock Life is, to this day, Jay-Z’s bestselling album. Six million copies sold in the United States alone. This is simultaneously Jay-Z’s breakthrough and commercial peak. And he will not pretend to be conflicted about this. In Decoded, he writes, “It’s a recurring story in hip-hop, the tension between art and commerce. Hip-hop is too important as a tool of expression to just be reduced to a commercial product. But what some people call ‘commercializing’ really means is that lots of people buy and listen to your records. That was always the point, to me. After my first record got on the radio and on BET, it was wild being at home, feeding my fish, and suddenly seeing myself on TV.”

To hear the full episode, click here. Subscribe here and check back every Wednesday for new episodes. And to order Rob’s new book, Songs That Explain the ’90s, visit the Hachette Book Group website.