spot a few blacks the higher I go/What’s up to Will? Shout-out to O/That ain’t enough, we gon’ need a million more/Kick in the door, Biggie flow/I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go. You’re 1 percent of the 1 percent. So what now? Power to the people, when you see me, see you! But that just won’t do. It’s Jay-Z who’s in Paris, after all, not the kids in the Marcy Houses, the housing project in Brooklyn where he grew up. Jay-Z knows this. He gets a little agitated when the subject of Zuccotti Park comes up: ‘‘What’s the thing on the wall, what are you fighting for?’’ He says he told Russell Simmons, the rap mogul, the same: ‘‘I’m not going to a park and picnic, I have no idea what to do, I don’t know what the fight is about. What do we want, do you know?’’ Jay-Z likes clarity: ‘‘I think all those things need to really declare themselves a bit more clearly. Because when you just say that ‘the 1 percent is that,’ that’s not true. Yeah, the 1 percent that’s robbing people, and deceiving people, these fixed mortgages and all these things, and then taking their home away from them, that’s criminal, that’s bad. Not being an entrepreneur. This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on.’’
It’s
so weird watching rappers becoming elder statesmen. I’m out for presidents to represent me. Well, now they do — and not only on dollar bills. Heavy responsibility lands on the shoulders of these unacknowledged legislators whose poetry is only, after all, four decades young. Jay-Z’s ready for it. He has his admirable Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation, putting disadvantaged kids through college. He’s spoken in support of gay rights. He’s curating music festivals and investing in environmental technologies. This October, his beloved Nets take up residence in their new home — the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. And he has some canny, forward-looking political instincts: ‘‘I was speaking to my friend James, who’s from London, we were talking about something else, I just stopped and I was like, ‘What’s going to happen in London?’ This was maybe a month before the riots. He was like, ‘What?’ I said: ‘The culture of black people there, they’re not participating in changing the direction of the country. What’s gonna happen there?’ He actually called me when it blew up, he was like, ‘You know, I didn’t really understand your question, or the timing of it, until now.’ ’’ But still I think ‘‘conscious’’ rap fans hope for something more from him; to see, perhaps, a final severing of this link, in hip-hop, between material riches and true freedom. (Though why we should expect rappers to do this ahead of the rest of America isn’t clear.) It would take real forward thinking. Of his own ambitions for the future, he says: ‘‘I don’t want to do anything that isn’t true.’’ Maybe the next horizon will stretch beyond philanthropy and Maybach collections. Meanwhile, back in the rank and file, you still hear the old cry go up: Hip-hop is dead! Which really means that our version of it (the one we knew in our youth) has passed. But
nothing could be duller than a ’90s hip-hop bore. Lil Wayne? Give me Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Nicki Minaj? Please. Foxy Brown. Odd Future? WU TANG CLAN 4EVAH. Listening to Jay-Z — still so flexible and enthusiastic, ears wide open — you realize you’re like one of these people who believes jazz died with Dizzy. The check comes. You will be unsurprised to hear the Jiggaman paid. At the last minute, I remembered to ask after his family, ‘‘Oh, my family’s amazing.’’ And the baby? ‘‘She’s four months.’’ Marcy raised me, and whether right or wrong/Streets gave me all I write in the song. But what will TriBeCa give Blue? ‘‘I actually thought about that more before she was born. Once she got here I’ve been in shock until maybe last week?’’ Her childhood won’t be like his, and this fact he takes in his stride. ‘‘We would fight each other. My brother would beat me up,’’ he says, but it was all in preparation for the outside. ‘‘I was going to have to fight, I was going to have to go through some things, and they were preparing me.’’ He smiles: ‘‘She doesn’t have to be tough. She has to love herself, she has to know who she is, she has to be respectful, and be a moral person.’’ It’s a new day. n Watch the throne The arena’s 11 courtside luxury suites will be centered around a Champagne bar. Ralph Lauren Purple Label sweater, QR2530; ralphlauren.com. Ralph Lauren Black Label shirt, QR1075; ralphlauren.com. BLK DNM jeans, QR545. Tom Ford eyeglasses, QR1,275; Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, QR60,000. Opposite: Gucci jacket, QR17,800; mrporter.com. Jeans, shoes and shirt from previous photos. Fashion associate: Rae Boxer. Fashion assistants: Olivia Jade Horner and Elena Hale. Set design by Mary Howard. 97