Customer Reviews

Decoded

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bedford Stuyvesant was his country, and Brooklyn was his planet. With these words we are led into a world that you cannot imagine, that no film can do justice to. It requires hundreds of pages to absorb, and with each page you become further and further immersed. The graphic work accompanying the printed message is among the best I have ever seen, and it will help you to understand this very special person.

Somewhere in every person's life if you can experience transformation from where you were born to what your soul intended you to become, there is always a MENTOR figure. Sometimes it is a teacher, a relative, or a friend, but always someone.

For Jay-Z it was Slate, who was among the first street rappers, before they even put a name on the movement. He would stand in a circle; he could go 30 minutes just rhyming, as though he was trained for it. The young Jay-Z would stand and just be mesmerized by Slate, who seemed like an ordinary fellow until he stepped into the circle, and Jay-Z would transform himself by uttering the words, I can do that.

And therein begins a WILD RIDE, from the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn to king of the hip hop movement. He would go from drug dealing and drug running to a billion dollar self created empire that would be the envy of any businessman. Years later, Russell Simmons another hip hop master, and mentor to Jay-Z would say, that one grows up wanting to wear a suit, but hip-hop would mean never having to grow up and instead one would wear sneakers to the board room.

Jay-Z Decoded will have an interesting audience. Yes there will the kids who will own it and never read it, but for those of us, who read this book cover to cover, I promise you that you will not put this book back on the shelf without being affected by it.

You will understand the hopelessness of ghetto life, of thousands upon thousands of young people who get destroyed before having a change to figure out what they are even involved with. Only a small number will come through the funnel to survive and thrive, and occasionally break out. Jay-Z is one who broke out, and every aspect of this life biography is fascinating to the uninitiated. Here's why?

* The money is not in the singing, it's in the producing, owning the company.

* Kids treated automatic weapons like clothing, they would wear them the way they would wear their sneakers.

* In the hood, it was life during wartime.

* Rap is the story of the hustler, and it is the story of the rapper himself.

* Jay-Z starts wearing clothes designed by Iceberg, a European Sportswear designer. Upon meeting the designer, they offer him free clothing. The rap star walks away and builds a billion dollar clothing company from scratch. The story is all here and like the rest of the book, it's a page turner.

* His views on politics will grip you. He meets Obama the candidate, and astutely figures out that the most important thing the future President brings to the table is that he will help millions of black kids realize that they can aspire to something other than being drug dealers.

* He tells the future President that in one moment we will go from centuries of invisibility to the most visible position in the world.

* From housing projects designed to warehouse lives, to knowing that the truth will always be relevant, he will tell you that it's not about brainpower but stamina, self-motivation, willpower, and standing up to the mental and physical challenge of meeting life head-on.

CONCLUSION:

I came to this book with an open mind, and I could not have been more pleased with it. From the discussions about Quincy Jones who revolutionized musical arrangements in his lifetime, to Bono and his commitment to use his celebrity and money to transform society, the whole book was an exercise in literary pleasure. It is a demonstration that Dag Hammarskjold the UN Secretary General who gave his life for peace was right when he wrote the following. "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses". Thank you for reading this review.

Richard C. Stoyeck

I'm a Jay-Z fan. Period. But with that said, a music fan does not have to agree (or admire) every single thing an artist does. There were some parts in this book that I was flat out disgusted by and others I read and re-read.

Cons: I'm not a fan of the n-word. Period. While some may consider it a generational thing, I'm younger than Jay-Z (29), and I flat out don't have any respect for the word and will usually end up debating anybody who uses the word around me and DEFINITELY won't tolerate anybody calling me that. I think it's ridiculous that he wants people to let go of the entire history of the word but will then go into periods of the book where he reflects on how black people were treated historically, specifically during the Hurricane Katrina chapter.

He's still holding a grudge against Cristal because of what a representative said about not being able to control who buys his product. He felt that was racist. I can understand that. He felt like the rep used the wrong word. But then in the lyrics of one of his songs, he states that he wants Jehovah's Witnesses to stop being so uptight about him using the name "Hova" short for "Jehovah." He also brushed off anybody who was annoyed about the chorus of "99 Problems" and somehow believes that since he didn't talk about a woman during the song that no one should complain about him using the b-word. Whether it was used in the chorus or in the lyrics, it doesn't take much brainpower to figure out what "I got 99 problems, but a b---- ain't one" is referring to. Why not just not use it at all if you're not talking about a female?

Then there's a contradiction with him complaining about society looking at young, black men as troublemakers and thieves, but he goes right into rationalizing how brothas will steal just out of pure amusement (with money in their pocket), which proves the people who think lesser of them RIGHT. How does THAT solve anything? If anything, it makes "us" look worse.

The problem I kept finding in this book was that he rationalized his reasons for being mad and sensitive about some issues, but he had a habit of brushing off anybody else who was bothered by something he'd directly done, indirectly done or defended those who do. It was a little frustrating. I give him major kudos for putting himself on the spot during the experience he had with a reporter who wasn't fond of him wearing the T-shirt with Che Guevara. I really want to shake the hand of the reporter who called him out for that. Very good point about the contradiction between the T-shirt and the chain. I almost stopped reading the book altogether when he stated that people go to college because they're followers who see other people do it. Why is it so hard to believe that some people go to college because they LIKE learning, LIKE education and enjoy the culture?

Pros: I browsed through the footnotes about the lyrics. That wasn't initially interesting to me considering I own all of his CDs so I already know what many of the lyrics are, but there were some songs that I stopped to read the rationale behind. I found out some things I had no idea he meant by certain lyrics. And THANK YOU for pointing out that Scarface did not live until the end of the movie. I'm always amazed at how people admire "Scarface" when his story was so tragic in the end. I laughed a little when Jay-Z talked about people basically acting like only 2/3 of the film really happened. The story about the rapper Scarface was interesting, too.

Jay-Z is charming--in radio and television interviews. He was charming in this book. I was fascinated by his background (minus the drug dealing--I don't respect that at all). I enjoyed reading about his views on education, politics, hip-hop (so glad he mentioned some of my favorite lyricists like Big Daddy Kane and Rakim) and I was surprised he briefly threw in a little bit about an ex-girlfriend. Of course in true Jay-Z fashion, we never quite got WHY he broke up with her, only that he shared his disappointment with her about something he'd never done with anybody. There were some jokes that I laughed at (ex. why he can't rhyme Lil' Kim's lyrics but will recite Lauryn Hill's). I enjoyed reading about his experiences with Biggie, too.

I respected him for giving kudos to the "brave" people who would walk through the hood to go to a job at McDonald's. I'm happy he acknowledged the folks who didn't play the follower role. I never worked in the fast food industry, but I have a lot of respect for folks who have the patience to hold down those jobs especially with fast money surrounding them.

I read this book more to find out about his legitimate business life and background outside of the constant reminders that he used to sell drugs. Did I like it? Sure. Would I like to know more? Yup, but I doubt that other book will ever release in my lifetime (or his). Would I recommend it? Absolutely. He had an excellent balance of talking about the streets, the music industry, the business industry, a LITTLE bit about relationships (mainly friendships) and his take on politics, mainly President Barack Obama. Regardless of what reason you want to read about him, he covers it all (outside of his wife).

This book is definitely one for your collection of good books based on hip-hop. I grew up in the Bronx during the 70's and 80's and a lot of the "rap" traditions and "crack" traditions he writes about are valid and true. Once you read through the book you will learn a few things. My favorite new fact was how Memphis Bleek was originally not going to do Coming Of Age. I won't spoil it for you.

While the book is great to read, it's also great to look at. The pages are thick. There are pictures on almost every page which relate to that particular topic. The art direction, overseen by Jay-Z, looks really good. Honestly, they should make this book a coffee-table edition.

Now, the reason I did not give this book a five is for two reasons.

1. I wanted more. I have a few songs and lyrics from him that I would have like to have seen addressed.

Example: "...the fire I spit burn down Happy Land / Social Club, we unapproachable thugs..."

Growing up in the Bronx, I knew what that line meant, but many people don't.

"Happy Land Social Club was an unlicensed social club in the Bronx. On March 25th 1990, 87 people were killed in an fire set by Julio Gonzalez."

- Wikipedia

That line isn't deep but it made me stop and say "Wow! I forgot about when Happy Land got set on fire."

2. It didn't address one of my 9 year discussion over a line Jay-Z says in You Don't Know (Blueprint).

"I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell, I am a hustler baby, I'll sell water to a well/whale."

Either word works, but I'd like to know the true word. Did he intend to confuse us with a clever play on words?

Nevertheless, the book is great. The people who gave the book 1 star ratings didn't read the book, as they say in their reviews, so please rate those posts as unhelpful. However, If you actually read the book, and still give it one star, then that's justified.

I happened to catch an episode of Oprah a few weeks ago when she was in Australia and Jay-Z was a guest on her show. They talked about his book, Decoded, and how it changed the way she thought about Jay-Z and rap in general. A Jay-Z fan, I was intrigued and purchased Decoded for my Kindle.

Decoded was the perfect title and conveys multiple meanings. Jay-Z has the lyrics to many of his songs "decoded". The lyrics are seen in corresponding chapters with an extensive footnote section where he explains why he wrote some of the more cryptic lines. But more than just decoding his song lyrics, Jay-Z decoded many more issues for me: his early life, the drug culture, his business dealings, his philosophies on the music biz, politics, and why rap is so misunderstood by so many.

I came away from this book with a new appreciation for Jay-Z...his frankness and lack of apologies for his thug past, the affect of his father's abandonment, the intricacies of his lyrics, his business-savvy attitude and his apparent understanding of the world around him. But perhaps the biggest thing I came away with is a respect for Jay-Z the man. He's intelligent, articulate, and talented as well as paranoid (self described) and private. Rather than writing raps, he would speak them and transcribe them. In 6th grade, he was reading at a 12th grade level. He has a photographic memory. And whether it was by dealing drugs or having a rap career, Jay-Z strove to be the best at his game.

For people expecting a tell-all memoir, you will be disappointed in the book. Beyonce's name doesn't even appear. There are also many, many pages of song lyrics throughout the book that probably appeal to the most diehard fans but I skipped a lot of them. Decoded is a great read, and a book I expect will expand some people's minds (at least a little).

I got this as a christmas present for my nephew who is into the hip hop scene. I skimmed through it and read a chapter or two and was impressed. Jay Z is about 10 years younger than me, but dicuss a lot things I remember from high school (Run DMC, Sugar Hill, Grandmaster Flash, etc). Its interesting to see it discussed from a generation behind me perspective. The prose is put together in an interesting almost melodic way... I guess its what we should expect from a poet / rapper. Anyway, the whole rap scene sort of ended for me when Ice Cube / Dr. Dre / Tu Pac left the building. But I think it will put things into good perspective and sort of give a history lesson to the current set of listeners. If I see it, I will buy an audible version for myself.

Although, I am a Jay-Z fan, I firmly believe that this book, much like the man's music, rings with universal truth in every word that anyone around the world can relate to on many different levels. It can mean a million different things to a million different readers. Doesn't matter whether you are a fan of hip hop or not, you will appreciate his child-like sense of wonder that he approaches his life with. Whether you appreciate his music already or not, you won't be able to see him in the same light. This is a book about life, spirituality, self-discovery, music, poetry, business, craftsmanship, and society.

This well crafted auto-biography in many ways runs parallel to his music in the aspect that it is inspired stream of conscious, contains vivid imagery, and layered metaphors. He speaks about his life, his upbringing, his struggles, his paradigm-shifts, and his music but also dissects dozens of his songs. In this book Jay Z picks his own brain by analyzing his music. Below are excerpts from the book on some of the topics he touched on. I left out the parts where he really goes in and dissects his lyrical content so you can pick up the book and enjoy the journey yourself.

LIFE-

"I love metaphors, and for me hustling is the ultimate metaphor for the basic human struggles: the struggle to survive and resist, the struggle to win and make sense of it all."

"When you step out of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information."

Spirituality-

"I don't spend a lot of time on records talking about spiritual ideas in an explicit way, although I think a lot of my music sneaks in those big questions-of good and evil, fate and destiny, suffering and inequality...at the heart of a lot these competing ideas of the afterlife and heaven and hell and thug angels and all that is the idea that if the universe is just, things have to even out eventually, somehow. And sometimes that's a scary thought."

Self-Discovery-

"Competition pushes you to become your best self, and in the end it tells you where you stand. Jordan said the same thing about Larry Bird and Magic"

"I've discovered that there really is such thing as win-win situation. And sometimes, I'm only competing with myself, to be a better artists and businessman. To be a better person with a broader vision"

Music-

"The flow isn't like time, its like life. Its like a heartbeat or the way you breath, it can jump, speed up, slow down, stop, or pound right through like a machine. If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow."

"Knowing how to complicate a simple song without losing its basic appeal is one of the keys to good songwriting"

Poetry-

"This is another place where the art of rap and the art of the hustler meet. Poets and hustlers play with language, because for them simple clarity can mean failure. They bend language, improvise, and invent new ways of speaking truth."

"A poet's mission is to make the words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level. For instance, a poet makes words work sonically-as sounds, as music....the point of those bar is to bang out a rhythmic idea, not to impress you with the literal meaning of the words"

Business-

"He knew that great product was the ultimate advantage in competition, not how big your office building is or how deep your pockets are or who you know. In the end it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it, which is something I learned working the block"

"But in business, like they say, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. So I mind my business and I don't apologize for it.

Craftsmanship-

"The thing that distinguishes Jordan wasn't just his talent, but his discipline, his laser-like commitment to excellence. That's something I always respect, especially in people who have great natural talents already."

"when we take the most familiar subject in the history of rap-why I'm dope'-and frame it within the sixteen-bar structure of a rap verse, synced to the specific rhythm and feel of the track, more than anything it's a test of creativity and wit"

Society-

"To tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie"

"Its like listening to Maya Angelou and ignoring everything until you heard her drop a line about drinking or sleeping with someone's husband and dismissing her as an alcoholic adulterer"

In summation this book should come with a warning label because anyone who picks this book up with an open mind is sure to put it down a different person. You'll also never be able to listen to his music the way you used to as well. This book is an auto biography, a book of poetry, bible, a text book, a reference manual, a blueprint, but most importantly.... A roadmap on becoming `Dope'. And no one like Mr. Carter can say "I'm dope" with as much poetic eloquence.

This book is pretty amazing. For a fan of jay z it's put a lot of things into perspective of what he was feeling and how he came to create his lyrics. Usually a private guy, he let's you into his head and feelings in different times of his life. Even if your not a fan of Jay Z I would recommend reading this book just to shed more light on rap itself and how much feeling goes info it and how complex it can be, it's just not a bunch of words rhyming. It's poetry.

I loved the book from beginning to end. Gave me a greater respect for Jay-Z and what he encountered to reach the top of the rap game. Hats off to him!

An example of what really makes this book special is near the beginning of the chapter titled "Politics as Usual". Jay-Z describes his love/hate relationship with America and details an experience that is misunderstood by more than a few people. If anyone ever wondered or ridiculed Michelle Obama for her statement that she was "finally" proud of her country, then they ignore this countries ongoing conversation that basically commutes, as Jay-Z unabashedly states, "I hate your black ass". Jay's love for uniquely American experiences coupled with a distrust and oft-times disdain for it's politics are prime examples of the psychic duality of the black American existence as portrayed by literary greats like W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin, among others.

This book is a surprisingly accurate depiction of not only a ultra-successful rap artist, but also the psychological state of a minority within a minority of this country we live in. It is complex and refuses to be labeled as any one thing. In the end, it demonstrates how hip hop as a culture is a reflection of the people who created and performed it, along with the many relationships of those in larger society and how they have responded to that culture.

The book also triumphs in it's ability to demonstrate hip hop as an art and to display the level of intelligence most artists bring to the craft. Comparisons to Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan create a readily visible tie-in to the idea that it is more than just natural cultural ability that makes this art great, but traits and attributes that we all know to be necessary for any successful venture.

The style and graphics are sleek and catchy and create a visual complexity that is synonymous with the subject matter. This is a piece of black history and a perspective that is as important to this countries literature as classics such as "Manchild in the Promised Land" and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X".

Though many may not agree nor appreciate the experience, that is not really the point. To a part of the American population, that at times feels invisible in the greater conversations of this country, this book is a testament to it's triumphs and possibilities.

While Decoded by Jay-Z is one of the most popular books at the moment, I didn't enjoy it. Decoded is full of pictures and lyrics and it is written by one of my favorite people on the planet, but I found it to be difficult to follow. Jay-Z, as he said in his own comments of the book, is not a linear thinker. To be honest, I would have preferred the book to be chronological. Throughout different points in the book, I found myself confused about how old Jay-Z was at the time of the particular story. That means I was unsure of what had already happened in his career/life, what he was already capable of, and what he already knew. That threw me off a bit. For example, on page 140, Jay-Z says, "When I was a kid my family loved sports." So it is obvious that he is a kid in this particular story he is about to tell. But, in a different paragraph on that very same page, he says "the first time I met Jordan [Michael Jordan] was at St. John's University, where he was giving the keynote address to their graduation." I am pretty sure he is much older than a kid when he met Jordan, but he doesn't tell the reader whether he has aged since the preceding story. Also, on page 148, he shows the lyrics to his first song, but on the 147 pages before it, he lists and explains parts of 19 other songs (obviously written after his first song yet they are explained in the book before the first song is mentioned.)

Another reason why I didn't enjoy this book is because I went in thinking it was going to be an explanation of the experiences Jay-Z has had over the years. But, not just any experiences, the ones he chooses to talk about in his raps. So, I was looking forward to making more sense of his raps and therefore liking them even more. But, I was unpleasantly surprised when I realized that this was a book about Jay-Z's experience with rap as a whole and his opinion on the evolution of rap. Rather than explaining the experiences that he uses in his song, he picks potentially unclear words in his raps and clarifies their meaning. For example, on page 28, he clarifies the word "flyer" in his rap by saying, "The flier/flyer homonym also carries the momentum of the fire/supplier rhyme for one more line." Rather than explaining certain unclear lines and their meaning, he picks words and defines the slang in everyday language. He also speaks about rap as a whole and its importance to who he is. He explains how he used to sell drugs in his home town but rapping helped him get far away from that life. People in his home town, believed that either being a drug dealer or playing basketball were the only two ways to make it in the world, but he proved them wrong.

Decoded was a nice change for me, though, because most of the books I read are more serious novels. So I cannot say I regret reading it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for the same things I was. But, if you are interested in Jay-Z's perception of rap and how it changed his life, then this is definitely the book for you.