Book Review: Decoded

A few weeks ago I watched an Oprah show where she looked back on some of her favorite interviews, one of which was Jay-Z. She talked about his new book, "Decoded" which I decided to give a try. Oprah has always had a problem with rap music, especially the use of the "N word". They had a candid discussion about rap music in general as well as the language that rappers use. In his book, Jay-Z goes into even more detail.

Synopsis by Jay-Z:

"When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip-hop lyrics—not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC—are poetry if you look at them closely enough. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to."

I bought this book on my Kindle. It kept my attention because Jay-Z would spend a chapter talking about a specific part of his life and then a chapter of lyrics from his songs. The Kindle made it interactive, so when you hit certain lyrics, you could click on them and read a footnote by Jay-Z explaining what the synonym was or more details about the lyric.

I really liked how Jay-Z brought his life experience into the book and explained the "rapper persona". He says that hip hop artists are describing the only world they know through constant metaphor. His discussion about the "N word" is actually very interesting - he claims that people give words power and by not using them out of shame, you give the word more power than it is worth. Think about that for a minute. We're all taught that "shit" is a bad word, so we replace it with "shoot". The meaning is the same though, isn't it? Regardless of what I thought about the use of these words, Jay-Z makes you think in his book. I highly recommend it!