Blog Post #3

Interview (Fictional) of Shawn Corey Carter or Jay-Z

Jay-Z is a famous American Rapper, writer, producer record and one of the most successful artists and rapper of all time. He has sold more than 75 million records global, and received 19 Grammy Awards for his works. The three albums, The Blueprint, The Black album and Reasonable Doubt, are in the top 500 greatest hits album of all time from Rolling Stone’s list. 
Now we have the interview of Jay-Z which will show how he responses to our question about his career.

Question 1; How did you become an artist, what made you start your career?

Jay-Z: The environment in my community is the most obvious reason that I started my career. I used music and rap to escape from drug, violence, and poverty that surrounded my environment when I was young. My family also influenced my because my father left me when I was only eleven years old, therefore; I was raised by my mother only in drug- infested area. It made me wanted to escape from these environment, and it’s why I turned into rap.

Question 2; does your music reflect on your experienced that you have faced?

Jay-Z: Yes it does, almost all of my songs were written about the events that happened in my life. I used music as a way to express my experiences I faced within my community and personal life. For example; “Moment of Clarity” rap about the cruel circumstances of my father and uncle’s life and death. In this song, I rap about my life that I grew up in a family that was broken by the drug abuse violence that spread over the community. These violence and drugs caused me to dabble in drug, and formed a barrier between me and my father. This problem made my father to leave my family. However in this song, I rap about the way I found to accept the failure of my father. I gained the enough clarity to accept my father’s failure. “Lost One” is another song I wrote about the pain in my life. It was about the death of my nephew that drove the car I bought for him. I felt that it was by responsibility of his death. Hence I wrote the song in order to express my pain and feeling through it.

Question 3; what is your theme or style you use when writing you songs? Does it have anything specific?

Jay-Z: No it doesn’t, but most of the song I made relates to the experiences I faced throughout my life. Almost all the songs include the reflection and the felling I had of events; some of it includes violence, drug and the losses of my own family member and friends. There were many bad events occurred to my family such as the death of my nephew, the violent that my family had faced and the death of my cousin. These things made me to write song about them expressing my feeling and pain. I was once singing a song regarding to the politic too because I’m also a good friend with Obama who are the same black American as me.

Question 4; do you think that your songs have impact on the society and audience?

Jay-Z: Yes, I think that my songs do impact the audience in many ways, such as the uses of rhyme and my language skill in writing the song. I use rhyme as a common thing in my music which easily influenced the audience into the meaning of the song. I also use the language of my culture, American English, to define who I am and where I am from which attract the Black audience. The songs that I wrote also change some image of pop song to be more hardcore in lyrics which some artist follows my step. My music works also impact the perspective of society in looking themselves too. I express some my pain biography through music, stating that to be successful is tough, which affect the audiences in the society to think that ‘in order to be successful, you need to work hard’. I can say that my songs itself impact society and audience.

Last Question; do you think that the way you’ve written your song provides you authenticity?

Jay-Z: Yes, I think that how I’ve written my song define who I am. It shows my ability to rhyme, express my feeling and idea through fluent language and vocabulary, and the meaning of the song I wrote. Meanwhile, the way that I wrote my song still has the felling of Black American language within it which defines me. However, I cannot say that the only language in song itself really provides me an authenticity. The root of who I am and where I am from also provide me the authenticity. My surrounded community makes me who I am today, it create the motion to be an artist, expressing idea and feeling through music.