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      The Psychic Contortions of the Black Billionaire

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      Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by AudmTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.The story is so good it hurts to hear. In an era of stupefying inequality, one of the most famous members of the upper class is a former drug dealer from a notorious public-housing project. He switched the product and rode CD sales to a new ZIP code. He went from nobody to somebody to a fixture in public consciousness who hangs out with a former president. If you’ve been rapping along with Jay-Z since “Reasonable Doubt,” or maybe even his feature on the early Jaz-O single “Hawaiian Sophie,” you’d be forgiven for seeing that star scream across the sky and thinking his song was right: There’s nothing you can’t do.But when the force of his flow isn’t in your ears, what he did seems impossible once again. He is not just rich; he is, according to Forbes, a billionaire. Rappers aren’t supposed to make that much money. For starters, part of the job is knowing how to spend it, and Jay-Z has done plenty of that. But also, rappers, like athletes, tend to have short careers — the genre reinvents itself too quickly for elder statesmen to hang on. And it is a cutthroat business. Get rich or die trying is the injunction for this heady mix of the mostly male, mostly Black, cocksure young musicians rehearsing punch lines in the nation’s ghettos, where making it very well might be a matter of survival. It is a dreamer’s music, by necessity. But more than four decades into the genre’s reign, there are levels now. Some artists get paid. Others acquire capital.This is an uncomfortable situation. According to a recent survey conducted by the Federal Reserve, the median family wealth for Black households is $24,100. (The median white household has nearly eight times that.) Somewhere in that data set are eight Black American billionaires, at least according to the Forbes list. Whether your politics lead you to believe that these eight are inspirations or a problem, the last several centuries of history might lead you to ask how it is even possible they exist. Four of them — Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, Tyler Perry and Kanye West — made their names as entertainers. (There’s also Rihanna, who is a resident of the U.S. but not a citizen.) Rapper, as an occupation, appears more frequently on this short list than an Ivy League education does.Photo illustration by Ryan HaskinsIt is a strange fact of this country’s economic system that the most common way for Black people to become obscenely wealthy is to first become obscenely famous. Among other things, this means that much of their net worth is tied to the value of their public personas in ways that do not hold true for other billionaires. Whatever you think of Stephen A. Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson or even Bill Gates, their wealth is untethered to their Q Scores. Of course there are outliers. Elon Musk does relish playing to the crowd as the enfant terrible of auto manufacturing, generating an insulating admiration from his fans, but Kanye and Jay-Z are truly in a bind.For as long as it has existed, rap was, or was supposed to be, the crafted but splenetic outpouring of the dispossessed. At the same time, it has been about a life that most of its listeners cannot lead, but it held on, however tenuously, to its lower-class roots. Jay-Z always rapped as if he had the planet in his palm, even when it was really just a few blocks in Brooklyn. Over the years, he really did gain the whole world. And now a globally popular form of working-class youth music has, as its most powerful representatives, a pair of billionaires in their 40s and 50s. It has not been an easy balance to strike.Entertainers occupy a curious position where the lines between worker and owner sometimes blur. Rappers are signed to labels and then often open their own. Some of these labels collapse, often in a wave of recriminations about shady business practices. The contracts can control artists’ entire output, leaving them almost entirely dependent on the label to actually make something of their labor. Maximize revenue, cut labor costs. That, more than all the drug dealing said to take place, is the business world that produces many of these rappers. And they have, as often as not, leaned into this ethos. When they promise you that they’re reciting what they know, it is not really a reference to some social truth ripped from the depths of poor, Black neighborhoods. What they know is capital: What it is to have none, what it is to get a taste, what it takes to try to make peace with winding up on the other side of that divide.From the beginning, Jay-Z was a businessman. His debut album was released on the auspiciously named Roc-A-Fella Records, which he founded with two friends, Kareem Burke and Damon Dash. It made sense to have a piece of the action, because he helped popularize Mafioso rap, which took the bleak air of street-corner hustling and gave it the baroque mystique of gangster films. If there had not been a Black James Cagney or Francis Ford Coppola, there was at least a Shawn Carter. But the business world is brutal, inside and outside the law.At its peak in the ’00s, Roc-A-Fella featured a stacked cast: Just Blaze on production; the Philadelphia icons Beanie Sigel, Peedi Crakk and Freeway; the sprawling Dipset crew in Harlem; a young producer from Chicago named Kanye West. When Cam’ron appeared on the show “Rap City” in an oversize pink T-shirt, counting off a large pile of bills while freestyling that he’d “seen all islands, Cayman to Rikers,” it seemed unfathomable that the Roc era would ever end. But in a few years, Def Jam bought out the label’s founding partners and appointed Jay as the umbrella corporation’s president. Fights over shelved albums, loyalty, blocked promotions and due credit broke up what had looked like a street family.This led to a peculiar situation in which boardroom drama spilled out in the form of diss tracks by Def Jam artists aimed at their employer’s lead executive. Roc-A-Fella eventually folded. But still, to this day, Jay-Z owes much of his image as a business magnate to the dynastic sheen his labelmates gave “the Roc,” not to mention the marketers, graphic designers and interns that made them icons of New York street swagger.Jay diversified his portfolio in the years after that. He has a stake in Oatly, two separate highly valued liquor companies — Armand de Brignac Champagne and D’Ussé Cognac — several homes, the streaming platform Tidal, a club near Madison Square and an expansive art collection. If on his debut he spoke a little beyond his means when he said he was “well connected,” he has made it true. It is hard to think of a door he cannot open. Even as he has outgrown what made him Jay-Z, that project remains central to his business. He is the best rapper alive, the entrepreneur who made it out of the projects, the kingpin. The albums remind you why the Cognac is worth so much money.‘What’s better than one billionaire? Two. Especially if they from the same hue as you.’This situation is not unique. In the entertainment world, people must become corporations if they want to become truly wealthy. High-profile singers, athletes, actors and so on often make their real money from endorsement deals rather than their day jobs. What separates the billionaires from their peers is that they turned endorsements into equity. Michael Jordan gets a percentage of Nike’s Jordan brand revenue. Kanye, who owns the Yeezy brand outright, has major deals with Adidas and Gap. Winfrey and Perry have sprawling media concerns. Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is a subsidiary of the LVMH luxury conglomerate.Many of these businesses could keep running without their famed figureheads, but the sheen would dissipate somewhat. Dell does not sell its computers by trading on the fact that it and its founder share a name. But without Kanye’s imprimatur, it’s hard to imagine Yeezy’s moon-boot look becoming a default sneaker silhouette. Fenty, by contrast, seems to have capitalized on a real gap in the market by broadening the available shades for foundation and concealer. Still, the entertainer-billionaire is as much the product as the shoe or concealer up for sale. From the outside looking in, this seems like a shaky foundation for a fortune so vast. Stars lose their luster all the time. It’s part of their appeal.On “The Story of O.J.,” from his latest album, “4:44,” Jay-Z raps about the psychic drama of successful Black Americans. In the animated video, his character tells his therapist that he failed to invest in Dumbo real estate early and missed out on a 1,250 percent return. Later he explains that art he bought for $1 million appreciated in value and is now worth 8. The song weaves back and forth between an examination of racial stereotypes and a guidebook to gaining freedom through asset ownership.You could hear Jay-Z, over time, growing more comfortable with his newfound status. On “The Black Album,” he rapped, “I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them, so I got rich and gave back, to me that’s the win-win.” It’s a defensive sentiment. The poor do help one another; there is often no other choice. That song is called “Moment of Clarity” — but nothing seems very clear at all. All the old signifiers, the ones linking public prominence and political progress, are slipping. They have to be reasserted from the top down. “What’s better than one billionaire? Two. Especially if they from the same hue as you,” Jay-Z rhymed on “4:44.” The ghetto’s music is starting to sound like prosperity gospel. Rap is relatable because the fan embodies the rapper. The “you” is rarely the listener, rather an invitation to adopt a new “I.” That “I” might get high, duck, dive, sling, get shot at and shoot back. But who is this “I” who accumulates such an immense sum of money, he starts to see things from the other side while insisting we’re still the same? The hue tells me nothing about what you’ve become.For once, through drive and circumstance, a few Black artists actually stand to be the main beneficiaries of the popularity of Black culture. On paper that might be progress. But two things remain clear: Black art sells, and wealth collects. Money pools in rooms that remain hard to get into. Years ago, Forbes magazine organized a meeting between Jay-Z and Warren Buffett, treating the rapper like the heir apparent. They both spoke about the role of chance. Buffett talked at length about being white, male and born in the U.S. at the right time. It was the discourse of what we would now call “privilege,” which feels like an understatement when talking about one of the wealthiest men alive. When Jay-Z spoke, he told a story about a nearly inseparable friend of his who was arrested during a sting operation. Jay-Z happened to be out of the country for an early recording date. His friend was incarcerated for over a decade. That’s luck, the vicious kind that fortunes are made of.Blair McClendon is a writer, an editor and a filmmaker in New York. His writing has appeared in n+1, The New Republic and The New Yorker. More

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      How Hip-Hop Inched Its Way to the Super Bowl Halftime Stage

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      At Sunday’s game, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar will lead the first-ever halftime performance with rap at its center. The genre has taken a roundabout path to get there.On Sunday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., the Super Bowl halftime show will feature the local rap heroes Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, placing hip-hop firmly at the center of the annual spectacle, which is routinely watched by more than 100 million people, for the first time.The show, which is being produced in part by Jay-Z’s entertainment and sports company, Roc Nation, will also star Eminem and Mary J. Blige, but it will not be the first to include rap music. The genre has taken a rocky, roundabout path to headliner status at the Super Bowl, with this year’s event coming at an increasingly fraught moment for the N.F.L. regarding race.That baggage is nothing new: At least since 2016, when the quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police killings of Black people, the league has faced questions about its commitment to diversity and social justice, on the field and off. More than 70 percent of the league’s players are Black, but the N.F.L. has no Black owners and, until recently, only one Black head coach. This month, Brian Flores, the Miami Dolphins head coach who was fired last month, sued the league, claiming he and others had been discriminated against in the hiring process.Those debates have trickled into its entertainment business. In 2017, well before his company partnered with the N.F.L., Jay-Z turned down an offer to perform at the Super Bowl, and reportedly urged others to do the same. In subsequent years, with Jay-Z declaring “we’ve moved past kneeling” to some backlash among players and fans, Roc Nation has booked pop extravaganzas featuring the Weeknd, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.But Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg — while among the most recognizable hip-hop veterans with decades of hits and pop culture cachet between them — represent something different, and that may be the idea. “At one point, Dre was in a group that was banned by popular culture,” said Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, which headlined the show in 2011, referencing the widespread controversies of Dr. Dre’s early gangster rap act N.W.A.That the N.F.L. has now turned to these once-controversial figures with their own checkered pasts may seem far removed from the days of pearl-clutching regarding Janet Jackson’s 2004 wardrobe malfunction, M.I.A.’s middle finger in 2012 and Beyoncé’s nods to the Black Panthers in 2016. But some say it’s also indicative of the league’s long, jagged journey to embrace Black music and culture — especially rap — as well as its need to shore up its community bona fides now.“The N.F.L. is positioning the halftime show as a meaningful occurrence,” Dr. Ketra Armstrong, a professor of sport management at the University Michigan and the director of the Center for Race & Ethnicity in Sport, said in an interview. “But to some, it seems performative for the N.F.L. to feature these artists. It feels like window dressing. You’re using Black talent to entertain the masses, but what are you doing that would honor the essence of hip-hop, like addressing racial injustices in the communities that have bred this labor force of Black talent?”Dive Deeper Into the Super Bowl Optimism and Anxiety: This year, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will host the Super Bowl. What does the event mean for the city? Home Advantage: The Rams will use their usual facilities and home stadium in the game against the Bengals. Here is how they are getting ready.Cooper Kupp: The Rams receiver managed an All-Pro season, becoming a sure-handed catcher and the driving force behind the team’s success.Joe Burrow: He has led the Bengals to their first Super Bowl appearance in 1989. But he still thinks about that playoff loss in high school.The Super Bowl halftime stage was not always a place for hitmakers. In 1967, with popular music venturing into daring directions, a television audience of about 51 million watched the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band perform a selection of tunes including the Dixie anthem “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.”Other marching bands had the spotlight for years, as did avatars of safe, family-oriented entertainment, like Andy Williams and Carol Channing. No rock performer played the halftime show until 1988, almost seven years into the MTV era, when the oldies act Chubby Checker twisted at Super Bowl XXII. Three year later, New Kids on the Block would become the first contemporary pop group to perform at the event, and the show remained blandly middle-of-the-road until Michael Jackson’s powerhouse performance in 1993.In the years that followed, established greats like Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder dominated, sometimes with more modern acts like Gloria Estefan and Boyz II Men as guests, though the burgeoning hip-hop of the 1990s remained absent. When Queen Latifah joined the Motown tribute in 1998, she performed “Paper,” one of her first songs to not feature any rapping.The next modern M.C. to take the Super Bowl stage was Nelly in 2001, as part of a larger ensemble of pop figures. He returned in 2004 and was joined by P. Diddy, bringing more contemporary rap to the performance than ever before. But that was also the year that changed everything: After a medley of appearances by Diddy, Nelly and Kid Rock, Janet Jackson sang, among other songs, “Rhythm Nation” — an idealistic ode to unity and Black power (“Join voices in protest/To social injustice”) — before finishing the show by duetting with Justin Timberlake on his hit “Rock Your Body.” Just before the commercial break, Timberlake put his hand on Jackson’s costume, pulled at it and exposed her right breast, triggering a national uproar.Missy Elliott, left, joined Katy Perry at halftime in 2015. Will.i.am performed with the Black Eyed Peas in 2011, ushering in a new era of pop on the halftime stage after a period of classic rock acts.From left: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images; Adam Bettcher/Getty ImagesFor years after, the Super Bowl halftime producers retreated to the safety of classic rock: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and the Who all performed. It was during that period of careful conservatism that Will.i.am saw an opening.“I flew out to New Jersey, went to the N.F.L. headquarters, and I pitched the Black Eyed Peas,” he said in an interview. “We weren’t, like, ‘Yo, we’re family friendly!’ Or ‘We rated PG, bro.’ My pitch was, ‘You know you need to have pop on the halftime show again.’” It wouldn’t be long, he warned the N.F.L., before they ran out of classic rock bands.In 2011, the Black Eyed Peas got the gig, inching the N.F.L. back toward the modern mainstream. But concerns about putting on a show palatable to all audiences lingered. “There’s a girl in our group,” Will.i.am said, referring to the singer Fergie. “They were nervous about that,” he said, and “checked our wardrobe like we were going through freakin’ security at the airport.”“You’ve got to understand the circumstances, and the walls that were up,” Will.i.am added. “We cracked open the door to get the N.F.L. out of that fear of pop and urban music after a seven-year break of only going legacy. To now have everybody from Bruno to Beyoncé to Dre and Snoop — talk about a total perspective change on the importance of diversity and inclusion,” he said, referring to Bruno Mars, who headlined in 2014 and returned as a guest two years later.Yet even as rap slowly regained its place on the Super Bowl stage — with Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliott, Travis Scott and Big Boi all making cameos in the last decade — questions linger about whether the music and its messages can transcend the 12-minute show now that the genre is taking prominence.“The N.F.L. is trying to look better by celebrating hip-hop, but they need to do better,” said Dr. Armstrong, the professor. “I’m hoping the artists are going to use their own power and influence to get them to do so.”A Brief History of Hip-Hop at HalftimeSuper Bowl XXXII (1998)When in doubt, it’s always safe to program something nostalgic, like a salute to Motown’s 40th anniversary (the label was founded in 1959). The featured acts were the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, and Martha and the Vandellas. To balance the generational appeal, they were joined by the label’s then top current act — the throwback harmony group Boyz II Men — as well as the Motown rapper Queen Latifah, who sang a new-jack-swing-inspired version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”Super Bowl XXXV (2001)The St. Louis rapper Nelly, who’d released the breakout Top 20 pop hit “E.I.” in 2000, was an afterthought on this bill, which featured the rock band Aerosmith, then in its fourth decade, and the peppy pop phenoms ’N Sync. The two groups alternated songs, then united for the big finale, “Walk This Way,” joined by Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly, whose “E.I.”/”Walk This Way” mash-up included only half of his first verse. Total camera time for rap: 18 seconds.Super Bowl XXXVIII (2004)Three years later, Nelly returned and performed his No. 1 hit “Hot in Herre,” which urged listeners to “take off all your clothes.” Combined with Kid Rock and P. Diddy, there was far more rap included than in any previous Super Bowl show. But this infamous halftime show is mostly remembered for the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake incident, in which her breast was mostly exposed. Not long after, Jawed Karim, a computer science and engineering student, grew frustrated at how difficult it was to find a clip of that moment online, and sensing a market niche for a video-sharing site, soon helped found YouTube.Super Bowl XLV (2011)The N.F.L. disappeared pop music from the halftime show for several years, eager to avoid bad publicity or Congressional criticism. But the supply of widely beloved rock stars was limited, and Ricky Kirshner, in his debut as the show’s producer, brought in the pop-rap group Black Eyed Peas. The group dashed through their many hits while leaping around a set that looked like a “Tron” reboot. And in the Super Bowl’s attempt at broader appeal, Slash of the rock band Guns N’ Roses played guitar while Fergie, of the Black Eyed Peas, sang the band’s ferocious “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”Super Bowl XLVI (2012)Madonna headlined the show in a gladiator’s cingulum — with ample help from the briefly massive party-rap duo LMFAO; the rapper and singer Cee Lo Green; and Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., two inventive rap talents who’d recently recorded “Give Me All Your Luvin’” with Madonna. M.I.A.’s verse had a few expletives, which were bleeped out, and in their stead, she raised her left middle finger to the camera. The F.C.C. reportedly received more than 200 complaints, about one for every 450,000 viewers. The N.F.L. apologized to its audience and filed arbitration claims seeking $16.6 million from M.I.A., whom they said violated a contract requiring her to comply with anti-profanity standards. This prompted M.I.A. to tweet at Madonna, “Can I borrow 16 million?” The conflict was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.Super Bowl XLIX (2015)In the most-watched halftime show ever, with nearly 115 million viewers, the headliner Katy Perry was joined by Lenny Kravitz for a rocking rendition of her hit “I Kissed a Girl,” but the true second banana was Missy Elliott, who performed parts of three of her tracks: “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It” and “Lose Control.” The pairing of Perry and Elliott seemed more natural than other shotgun marriages, because both are pop surrealists. More than two years later, Elliott tweeted that she’d been in the hospital the night before the Super Bowl, and when her first song started, “I was SO SHOOK. I said Lord I can’t turn back now.”Super Bowl LIII (2019)In solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, a number of Black artists were rumored to have turned down offers to perform in 2019. Instead, Maroon 5 headlined with guest spots from Travis Scott and Big Boi of Outkast. “It’s what it is,” the Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine said after people criticized the band and accused it of violating a boycott. “We’d like to move on from it.”Super Bowl LIV (2020)The N.F.L. knew it had to fix its relationship with hip-hop, and partnered with Jay-Z and Roc Nation to produce the Super Bowl halftime show. Kaepernick “was done wrong,” Jay-Z told The New York Times. “But it was three years ago, and someone needs to say, ‘What do we do now — because people are still dying?’” The headliners were Shakira, a Roc Nation management client, and Jennifer Lopez: two Latina women who have released albums in Spanish as well as English. They were joined by Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper and singer; and J Balvin, a Colombian who brought reggaeton, rap’s younger Spanish-speaking cousin from the Caribbean, to the Super Bowl stage. More

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      Jay-Z, Foo Fighters and Carole King Join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

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      Barack Obama (via video), Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift spoke on behalf of the inductees at a ceremony that also honored Tina Turner, the Go-Go’s and Todd Rundgren.CLEVELAND — Like many awards shows during the pandemic, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame hosted a virtual induction ceremony in 2020. On Saturday night at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, where the organization’s museum is based, the event returned with a powerful lineup to laud its 36th annual class: a former United States president, Taylor Swift and a Beatle.A video introduction for Jay-Z that flaunted the New York City rapper’s wide reach opened with a tribute from Barack Obama. “I’ve turned to Jay-Z’s words at different points in my life, whether I was brushing dirt off my shoulder on the campaign trail, or sampling his lyrics on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of the Selma march to Montgomery,” said Obama, who spoke in the package alongside Beyoncé, Chris Rock and LeBron James.The comedian Dave Chappelle, who delivered Jay-Z’s formal induction in the arena, opened with, “I would like to apologize …” — an apparent reference to the controversy surrounding his recent Netflix special, “The Closer” — before sticking to the subject at hand: Jay-Z’s eternal sense of calm and how he has stayed true to his community through the decades.“When he said this is Jay everyday. When he told us he’d never change. You heard this and you probably said as a white person, ‘Well, maybe this guy should focus on his development,’” Chappelle said. “But what we heard is that he’ll never forget us. He will always remember us. And we are his point of reference. That he is going to show us how far we can go if we just get hold of the opportunity.”A tuxedo-clad Jay-Z, who did not perform, followed with a charming, sometimes meandering 10-minute speech in which he referred to the mentors and peers who guided him: LL Cool J (who received a musical excellence award on Saturday after he wasn’t voted in on his sixth nomination), KRS-One, Rakim and Chuck D, among others. “Growing up, we didn’t think we could be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” Jay-Z said. “We were told that hip-hop was a fad. Much like punk rock, it gave us this anti-culture, this subgenre, and there were heroes in it.” Hopefully, he added at the end of his remarks, he is showing the “next generation that anything is possible.”The actress Angela Bassett inducted the singer Tina Turner, who did not attend the event.Michael Loccisano/Getty ImagesThe actress Drew Barrymore, center, with the Go-Go’s. David Richard/Associated PressJay-Z joined one of the more diverse recent Rock Hall classes: Carole King, the singer and songwriter who was honored by the organization in 1990 with her songwriting partner and former husband Gerry Goffin; the arena rockers Foo Fighters, whose frontman, Dave Grohl, traced the band’s longevity to the familial bond developed between the musicians; the indefatigable powerhouse singer Tina Turner, finally inducted as a solo performer after gaining entry as part of Ike and Tina Turner in 1991; the 1980s power-pop band the Go-Go’s, hailed as the sound of “pure possibility” in a big-hearted introduction by Drew Barrymore; and the classic rock auteur Todd Rundgren, who recently told TMZ that he “never cared much about the Hall of Fame” and stayed true to his word, skipping the event to perform a solo set in Cincinnati. HBO will present highlights from the ceremony on Nov. 20.Jay-Z’s speech, filled with asides and memories, well demonstrated how despite the multitude of big personalities packed into one of Cleveland’s biggest venues, the event often centered on more intimate moments.Swift helped set the more personal tone, recalling in her induction speech for King how at age 7 she used to dance throughout her house in socked feet while listening to the musician’s records. “I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know Carole King’s music,” said Swift, who went on to describe the seemingly magical way that King’s songs could be introduced by an outsider — a parent, a sibling, a lover — only to become an integral part of a person’s own internal world.“I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know Carole King’s music,” said the singer Taylor Swift, left, with King.Gaelen Morse/ReutersSwift embodied this idea in her show-opening performance, gliding through “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” which Swift reinvented as a gently pulsating synth-pop ballad that wouldn’t feel out of place in her own discography. King, who could be seen onscreen in the venue wiping away tears as Swift finished the song, thanked the pop star for “carrying the torch forward” in her own speech.“I keep hearing it, so I guess I’m going to have to try to own it, that today’s female singers and songwriters stand on my shoulders,” said King, who was quick to extend the spotlight to her own forebears. “Let it not be forgotten that they also stand on the shoulders of the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. May she rest in power, Miss Aretha Franklin!”In his speech for the Foo Fighters, Paul McCartney joking pointed out how Dave Grohl followed in his own footsteps. Both were swept up by music at a young age, McCartney said, landing in popular groups that came to an untimely end. Both rebounded by making albums and playing all the musical parts (Grohl with Foo Fighters’ self-titled 1995 debut; McCartney with his 1970 solo album). “Do you think this guy’s stalking me?” the Beatle cracked.Onstage, Grohl, born roughly 60 miles east of the Rock Hall in Warren, Ohio, praised the influence of the Beatles and in particular McCartney, describing him as “my music teacher.” After the Foo Fighters muscled through a trio of battle-tested rock singalongs — “The Best of You,” “My Hero” and “Everlong” — McCartney repaid the favor, joining the band for a galloping cover of the Beatles’ “Get Back.”The singer Paul McCartney, right, inducted the Foo Fighters. He joined the band for a galloping cover of the Beatles’ “Get Back.”Michael Loccisano/Getty Images H.E.R. and Keith Urban paid tribute to Turner.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty ImagesIn other performances, H.E.R., Christina Aguilera, Mickey Guyton and Keith Urban combined to pay tribute to Tina Turner, who did not attend the event. During the in memoriam segment, Brandi Carlile joined her bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth for an understated take on the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream” to honor Don Everly, who died in August.The Go-Go’s captured all of the sunny, sneering urgency of their 1981 debut “Beauty and the Beat,” the first and only album from an all-woman band to score the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s chart, opening with “Vacation,” pogo-ing into “Our Lips Are Sealed” and closing with a bounding, bass-heavy “We Got the Beat.”In Janet Jackson’s 2019 induction speech, she spoke of the Rock Hall’s well-documented gender imbalance, asking voters to “please induct more women.” The Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine echoed these comments during the band’s own time onstage.While Valentine credited the Rock Hall for making progress, she also prodded the organization to do more. “By honoring our historical contribution, the doors to this establishment have opened wider,” she said. “Because here is the thing, there would not be less of us if more of us were visible.” More

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      Ego Nwodim Used to Be Obsessed With Jay-Z. Now She Is Again

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      The ‘S.N.L.’ comedian talked about navigating life with ‘The Four Agreements’ and why “The Town” will always be her favorite movie.The new season of “Saturday Night Live” was less than a month away. But Ego Nwodim’s brain was telling her she had plenty of time to do more.An avowed workaholic, Nwodim intended to pack her schedule to overflowing before returning to 30 Rock with her Dionne Warwick impression. Earlier this summer, she had traveled to Italy for a single day of shooting on the comedy “Spin Me Round,” opposite Alison Brie, and then flitted from Venice to Milan to Positano to Florence, with stops in between, “in that sort of nonsensical way,” she said.More recently she’d wrapped “Players,” a Netflix rom-com with Gina Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr. And just the day before she’d done a little audio tweaking for the second season of “Love Life” with Anna Kendrick, which begins Oct. 28 on HBO Max.“Today I counted how many jobs I did on my hiatus,” she said. “And I was like, ‘You actually did a lot.’ Because there was a point this summer where I go, ‘You haven’t done anything or enough.’ My brain told me that.”Nwodim rather famously majored in biology at the University of Southern California, a deal she made with her family so that she could move from Maryland to Los Angeles, where she honed her comedy chops at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. “I didn’t enjoy the bio major — it’s not my passion clearly,” she said. “But I have an aversion to quitting.”“I don’t encourage people to be like me,” she added with a laugh. “It’s sometimes good to quit.”In a video call from her light-filled Brooklyn apartment, Nwodim elaborated on a few of her cultural essentials, including “The Four Agreements” guide to living, the gold jewelry that makes even sweats look intentional and the cool quotient of Jay-Z.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz It is such a simple guide as far as how to approach so much of life and so many of the stressors that I encounter. I always start with, Don’t take anything personally. That’s not the No. 1 agreement, but that’s the one I find myself constantly going back to. Everything people do and say is a reflection of them and where they are in their life, even positive stuff. That is a fascinating one because it feels easy to apply to criticism. But I’m also not going to take praise personally? That’s tough.2. Jay-Z In college, I was obsessed with him. I used to get in arguments with people about how cool he was. Then I took many years off, calmed down and I was like, “That’s not a way to live.” And now, I’m back. I’m such a huge fan of his journey as a person, from drug dealer to corporate businessman and father, husband, son to Gloria Carter. I really admire his work ethic and the way he moves about the world. Look at me [smiling and laughing]! But this isn’t a crush. I just have the utmost respect for this person. I think he’s so freaking cool. And every time I go, “OK, enough about how cool Jay-Z is,” he just gets cooler.3. Ben Affleck’s “The Town” I know it’s not some art house film. But I like heist movies, and I saw that movie in theaters maybe six times. No joke. I still talk about this movie. I still quote this movie. Everyone sort of rolls their eyes at it. People have been like, “It’s just the white man version of ‘Set It Off,’” which probably sounds about right. Key moment: When Ben Affleck goes to Jeremy Renner, “We got to go do something. Can’t ask me what it is. Don’t ask me later.” And Jeremy goes, “Whose car are we driving?” That is best friendship.4. Gold Jewelry Before I had “S.N.L.,” I had a lot of gold rings that were not real gold because I was broke. I’m still not rich, by the way. I ran into my friend Khoby [Rowe] at a Comedy Central Emmys party, and I go, “I think I’m going to treat myself to a real gold ring — one that I can wash my hands and put lotion on and not have it turn.” And she was like, “Hell yeah. This ring on my hand, I treated myself, too.” And when I got “S.N.L.,” her text to me was like, “I think you’re allowed to get yourself a ring.”5. Yerba Mate I would watch friends develop coffee addictions. It became such a part of the routine, like, “I literally can’t get my day started without this.” And I basically want a life where I don’t need anything to function besides water and food — you know, Maslow’s hierarchy. So I don’t like to drink coffee, and if I do it’s because I’m really in a pinch. I prefer yerba mate. I feel like I get energized, and it’s natural, so they say. It could very well be a placebo effect, but I’m OK with that.6. “Death, Sex & Money” Podcast It’s about the human experience. “Death, Sex and Money” does a great job of reminding us that we’re connected. And so much of our experiences are shared regardless of race, gender, religion. Think of all the ways we are divided as a people. So, I love that podcast. Big fan. The tagline is “things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” And it’s true.7. Prayer and Meditation I am a person of faith, is how I’d like to describe myself. And praying is just a conversation with God. I was listening to a podcast, and a guest, who I believe is sober, said that every thought, action and word is an offering to God. Kind of like everything’s a prayer. And if you can remember that in the moment, that’s really beautiful.8. Offerings in Los Angeles I lived in L.A. for 12 years, and I get disappointed any time a friend is in a different city and I need to send them flowers. Can’t find them elsewhere. Just the most beautiful floral arrangements. I’m so excited to hear people’s reactions to receiving those flowers, because they always have something to say. I sent them to Melissa Villaseñor once, and she goes, “I feel like a queen.”9. Solange’s “A Seat at the Table” What a beautiful body of work, top to bottom. I remember when I first heard it, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom in Santa Monica, and I was thinking, “Great, this’ll be background noise while I get ready.” But I felt stopped in my own tracks. I was like, “Whoa, what am I listening to?” I got to see her on tour for that album at the Hollywood Bowl, and I wondered, “How is she going to be able to fill this space?” Because I think of neo-soul as such an intimate experience and the Hollywood Bowl is huge. And she did — someone’s essence and artistry can do that — and I was brought to tears.10. My Niece Sophia was born on July 25, and a picture came to my phone, and I was instantly in love. Then I go home to Maryland, and I get to hold her, and my heart just grows a hundred sizes in a way I did not know it could until maybe I had my own children. I would sit there and just stare at her sleeping. It’s cool to find out where your heart can take you. I’ve never felt that kind of love, and I think that love opened me up to other love. More

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      Jay-Z’s ‘Black Album’ Reconsidered

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      Tally Abecassis and Phyllis Fletcher and Jay-Z at his studio in Manhattan in 2003.Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesIn 2003, Jay-Z announced he was retiring at 33 years old. He had several platinum records under his belt and a budding relationship with Beyoncé. Then, he released the album intended to be his last: “The Black Album.”Reggie Ugwu, a Culture reporter for The New York Times, was a senior in high school when “The Black Album” came out, and it became the soundtrack of his life. He loved not just the music, but the message: that being indisputably excellent was the only way to make it.But after the summer of 2020, as a global Black Lives Matter movement took off in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Reggie started to revisit the lessons of the album.“There was something that was missing from my understanding of how the world worked and my place in it,” Reggie said in this episode.Nearly 18 years later, Reggie reflects on “The Black Album” with Dodai Stewart, a deputy editor. Listen to their conversation.In this podcast episode:Dodai Stewart, a deputy editor for Narrative Projects at The New York Times.Reggie Ugwu, a pop culture reporter for The Times. More

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      DMX’s Posthumous All-Star Track, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Griff, Kidd G, Masayoshi Fujita and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.DMX featuring Jay-Z and Nas, ‘Bath Salts’This song from “Exodus,” the first posthumous DMX album, features a 1990s rap supergroup that could have been. DMX sounds limber and loose, and Jay-Z and Nas are having far more fun here than they did on the grown-and-grumpy “Sorry Not Sorry,” from the latest DJ Khaled album. The union of the three titans is consequential, but they treat it like a friendly cipher, the mark of stars confident in their legacy. JON CARAMANICASofi Tukker and Amadou & Mariam, ‘Mon Cheri’The nonprofit Red Hot Organization supports its efforts to fight AIDS with albums full of unexpected collaborators. The preview of its dance-oriented “Red Hot + Free” collection, due July 2, is “Mon Cheri,” which brings together the Florida dance-pop duo Sofi Tukker with the Malian singers Amadou & Mariam. Sophie Hawley-Weld of Sofi Tukker coos the verses in Portuguese, philosophizing about time and rhythm over a twangy guitar line that hints at Malian modes; when Amadou & Mariam arrive for the choruses, calling for togetherness in love, a 4/4 thump kicks in, steering the song directly to the dance floor. Before it’s over, a synthesizer starts cheerfully sputtering like a high-tech kazoo. JON PARELESMelvin Gibbs featuring Kokayi, ‘Message From the Streets’Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, and the culmination of a heady year of Black Lives Matter organizing. It was also the bassist Melvin Gibbs’s birthday. Over the past 12 months, Gibbs paid a number of visits to the site of Floyd’s death, and he was moved by the complicated but nearly serene energy about the place, which has become a kind of pilgrimage site and memorial. On Tuesday, Gibbs released an EP, “4 + 1 Equals 5 for May 25,” that balances coiled frustration with catalytic release. The idea, he wrote in the notes accompanying the EP, was “to manifest peace while facing up to cataclysm.” Working with the Washington, D.C.-based rapper Kokayi, Gibbs assembled a collection of pieces (condensed here into a final composite track, “Message From the Streets”) that writhe and heave but fix a steady gaze on the world. The act of bearing witness becomes a means of unmaking, and maybe building anew. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOUpper Wilds, ‘Love Song #5’Dan Friel has been making noisy rock — frenetic guitar abetted by over-the-top electronics — since he founded the band Parts & Labor in the early 2000s. He’s still at it in his current band, Upper Wilds, and “Love Song #5,” from an album due in July titled “Venus,” comes on as a whirlwind. As he sings about how love changes nothing and everything at once, a stereo blitz of distorted strumming, whizzing arpeggios and screaming sustained tones insists how much it matters. PARELESGriff, ‘One Foot in Front of the Other’Griff, an English pop singer, songwriter and producer who won this year’s Brit award as rising new star, sounds optimistic despite herself with “One Foot in Front of the Other,” which will be the title song of her mixtape due June 18. Sure, her first steps are tentative as she recovers from a breakup — “Things just take longer to heal these days” — but her perky keyboard tones and a chord progression that descends but soon bounces back all insist that she’ll thrive, and soon. PARELESKidd G, ‘Break Up Song’Recently, the emo-rap-influenced country singer Kidd G announced a partnership with the Valory Music Co., a division of the country powerhouse Big Machine Label Group. It was a seeming acknowledgment that his most viable path forward would run through Nashville — or at least near it. And indeed, he is slowly homing in on a version of his hip-hop that’s structured more like contemporary country music. On “Break Up Song,” the guitars are fuller, and his rapping has less residue of Juice WRLD than his earlier songs. The laments are pure country, too: “I wiped your footprints off the window of my truck.” CARAMANICAFoy Vance, ‘Sapling’A songwriter from Northern Ireland who’s fond of vintage American soul music, Foy Vance has collaborated with Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys and Kacey Musgraves. On his own, he harks back to Van Morrison’s better days, grainy and impassioned. Many of his previous songs have been folky and rootsy, but “Sapling” deploys electronic illusions as well. He strives to draw benevolence out of his own imperfections and regrets — “Am I strong enough?” he wonders — as patient piano chords open into vast reverberations. PARELESOhGeesy featuring DaBaby, ‘Get Fly’A union of one of hip-hop’s most stoic rappers and one of its most excitable. In this partnership, OhGeesy (formerly of Shoreline Mafia) pulls DaBaby into his patient tempo, a surprise victory. CARAMANICAMasayoshi Fujita, ‘Morocco’“Morocco” is from the new album, “Bird Ambience,” by Masayoshi Fujita, a Japanese vibraphonist and composer who constructs meditative pieces with a Minimalistic pulse — layers of vibraphone lines with fleeting apparitions of percussion and sustained brass tones. Every layer is melodic; follow any one closely, and it turns out to be far less repetitive than it seems at first. PARELESDave Holland, ‘Gentle Warrior’On his new album, “Another Land,” the eminent bassist Dave Holland teams up with the guitarist (and former “Tonight Show” musical director) Kevin Eubanks, a longtime Holland confidante, and the drummer Obed Calvaire, a newer collaborator. Holland is a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and former Miles Davis accompanist whose career has skipped around from jazz-rock fusion to the avant-garde, often lingering in the spaces in between. On “Gentle Warrior,” the one track on “Another Land” penned by Calvaire, the drummer works across the full range of his kit, getting his cymbals to speak to one another; Holland takes a bass solo that’s endowed with lyrical flair, and pries at the piece’s complex five-beat rhythm. RUSSONELLO More

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      Tina Turner and Jay-Z Lead Rock Hall of Fame’s 2021 Inductees

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      Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King and Todd Rundgren were also voted in, meaning nearly half of the 15 individuals in this year’s class are women.For years, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been pummeled by criticism that its inductees — the marble busts in the pantheon of rock — were too homogeneous, and that the secretive insiders who create the ballots showed a troubling pattern of excluding women.This year the voters seem to have listened: The class of 2021 features Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King, Tina Turner and Todd Rundgren — a collection of 15 individuals that includes seven women.That ratio alone should lend a new energy to the 36th annual induction ceremony, planned for Oct. 30 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.In past years, when women have been inducted, they have been far outnumbered by men. In 2019, for example, Stevie Nicks and Janet Jackson may have stood triumphant, but their earnest speeches — Jackson: “Please induct more women” — did not seem to last as long as it took to name every male bass player of the rock bands that joined alongside them.Dave Grohl, center, and the members of Foo Fighters. Grohl is already in the hall as a member of Nirvana.Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe latest inductees show a balance of genre and generation that has come to be a feature of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s expanding tent. Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl, represent the cream of 1990s-vintage alternative rock. Jay-Z is rap incarnate. And the Go-Go’s stand for joyful, upbeat 1980s power-pop.Each of those acts was a first-time nominee, although the Go-Go’s — the first and only all-woman rock band to score a No. 1 album on Billboard’s chart — have been eligible since 2006. (Artists can be nominated 25 years after the release of their first recording.)The Go-Go’s in the early 1980s: from left, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock, Charlotte Caffey and Belinda Carlisle.Paul Natkin/WireImageRundgren, the prolific producer and multi-instrumentalist, occupies the role of the auteur from classic rock’s flowering in the late 1960s and early ’70s; Turner is a force of nature whose career has stretched from old-school R&B to MTV-era pop; and King is the singer-songwriter and conscience who brings gravitas to the proceedings.Three of this year’s inductees were already in the hall: Grohl as a member of Nirvana, Turner with Ike and Tina Turner, and King as a nonperformer, with her songwriting partner and former husband Gerry Goffin.The story of the inductions is also told by who didn’t make the cut. The voters — a group of more than 1,000 artists, journalists and industry veterans — decided against the bands Iron Maiden, Devo, New York Dolls and Rage Against the Machine, as well as Kate Bush, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan and Dionne Warwick.The Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti would have been the first Black musician from Africa to join the hall, but was not voted in this year. Leni Sinclair/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesFela Kuti, the Nigerian-born pioneer of Afrobeat, had been the surprise nominee this year, and was one of the artists chosen in the Hall of Fame’s fan vote — an online public poll that creates a single official ballot — thanks in part to support from African stars like Burna Boy. Kuti would have been the first Black artist from Africa to join the hall, but he failed in his first time on the ballot. (Trevor Rabin of Yes is from South Africa, and Freddie Mercury of Queen was born in Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania; both bands are in the Hall of Fame.)And LL Cool J, a titan of hip-hop who also received high-profile support this year, lost after a sixth nomination. But he has been given a musical excellence award, for people “whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music.” This category was once known as the sidemen award, but it is also something of a consolation prize: The producer and guitarist Nile Rodgers won it in 2017 after Chic, his band, was passed over 11 times.The other musical excellence recipients this year include Billy Preston, the keyboardist who was a frequent collaborator of the Beatles, and Randy Rhoads, a guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne.Also this year, the Ahmet Ertegun Award, for nonperformers, will go to the record executive Clarence Avant, and “early influence” trophies will go to Gil Scott-Heron, Charley Patton and Kraftwerk, the German electronic pioneers who had been nominated for induction six times.The induction ceremony is to be broadcast later on HBO and streamed on HBO Max. More

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      Barack Obama Names Jay-Z's Song as His Mood Booster During Presidential Campaign

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      Twitter/Scout Tufankjian

      The Democratic politician reveals he listened to a rap song from ‘The Black Album’ whenever he felt low during the campaign trail when he was running for the President.

      Apr 4, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Jay-Z’s “My 1st Song” became an anthem for Barack Obama when he was first running for U.S. President.

      The former leader has revealed the rap song from Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” was a huge source of inspiration for him, and he’d listen to it to lift himself back up after a tough day on the campaign trail.

      “It is a song that I love because it talks about the struggle of just trying to make it,” Obama says. “And sometimes you have to resort to false bravado and hustle and tamping down your insecurities and when I was running for president, obviously, at that point I didn’t know whether I was gonna make it.”

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      “There’s a line in there: ‘Treat my first as my last and my last as my first and my thirst is the same as when I came’. And I actually kept on listening to that song during the presidency, because it was a reminder that – even when you do make it – having a little bit of that sense of still being hungry, still having to work hard, still having to prove something, that’s what keeps propelling you forward.”

      Back in 2017, Obama helped celebrate Jay-Z when the star made history as the first hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

      The Democratic Politician called Beyonce Knowles’ husband “a true American original” in a prerecorded video message.

      “I like to think Mr. Carter and I understand each other,” the then-president said. “Nobody who met us when we were younger men would have expected us to be where we are today.”

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