Decoding the day Jay-z met hip hop
His name was Slate and he was a kid I used to see around in the neighbourhood, an older kid who barely made an impression. In the circle, though, he was transformed like the church ladies touched by the spirit, and everyone mesmerized. He was rhyming, throwing out couplet after couplet like he was in a trance, for a crazy long time- thirty minutes straight off the top of his head, never losing the beat, riding the handclaps.
He rhymed about nothing- the sidewalk, the benches- or he’d go in on kids who were standing around listening to him, call out someone’s leaning sneakers or dirty Lee jeans. And then he’d go in on how clean he was, how nice he was with the ball, how all our girls loved him. Then he’d just start rhyming about the rhymes themselves, how good they were, how much better they were than yours, how he was the best that ever did it, in all five boroughs and beyond. He never stopped moving, not dancing, just rotating in the center of the circle, looking for his next target. Then sun started to set, the crowd moved in closer, the next clap kept coming, and he kept meeting it with another rhyme. It was like watching some kind of combat, but he was alone in the center. All he had were his eyes, taking in everything, and the words inside him. I was dazzled. That’s some cool shit was the first thing I thought. Then: I could do that.
He rhymed about nothing- the sidewalk, the benches- or he’d go in on kids who were standing around listening to him, call out someone’s leaning sneakers or dirty Lee jeans. And then he’d go in on how clean he was, how nice he was with the ball, how all our girls loved him. Then he’d just start rhyming about the rhymes themselves, how good they were, how much better they were than yours, how he was the best that ever did it, in all five boroughs and beyond. He never stopped moving, not dancing, just rotating in the center of the circle, looking for his next target. Then sun started to set, the crowd moved in closer, the next clap kept coming, and he kept meeting it with another rhyme. It was like watching some kind of combat, but he was alone in the center. All he had were his eyes, taking in everything, and the words inside him. I was dazzled. That’s some cool shit was the first thing I thought. Then: I could do that.
That night, I started writing rhymes in my spiral notebook. From the beginning it was easy, a constant flow. For days I filled page after page. Then I’d bang a beat out on the table, my bedroom window, whatever had a flat surface, and practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep. My mom would think I was watching TV, but I’d be in the kitchen pounding on the table, rhyming. One day she brought me a three-ring binder home from work for me to write in. The paper in the binder was unlined, and filled every blank space on every page. My rhymes looked real chaotic, crowded against one another, some vertical, some slanting into the corners, but when I looked at them the order was clear.
...For the rest of the story make sho you cop Jay-z’s autobiographical book Decoded.
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