Maturity, his hopes for black business and for leaving a lasting legacy My philosophy was scoring his reality, his lifestyle, his taste.” Mixing samples from some of Jay-Z’s favourite artists, among them Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye, with live instrumentation, No ID concocted the warm, spare set of soul- and reggae-driven productions that provide fuss-free backdrops to the rapper’s straight-talking bars. As No ID told The New York Times, “I asked him, ‘What do you listen to? Because I’ll sample it.’ He gave me this playlist and we began to make pieces of music out of the music he listened to. No ID, the Chicago native previously best known for his work with Kanye West (‘Heartless’ and ‘Black Skinhead’), Common (‘I Used To Love H.E.R.’) and Drake (‘Find Your Love’), went beyond the normal confines of a production role to take on the mantle of intimate collaborator, as he both encouraged the rapper in his choice of a confessional narrative and prompted him to contribute towards its musical soundtrack. In a move rarely heard of in modern hip-hop, a sole producer was brought in to oversee the album. “You can’t heal what you never reveal/What’s up Jay-Z/You know you owe the truth/To all the youth that fell in love with Jay-Z.” Ultimately, it’s a work which strips back the façade of the all-conquering hero to reveal a more mature, humble and reflective man. The song also outlines the motivations behind his newfound candidness. On opener ‘Kill Jay-Z’ he addresses shooting his crack-addicted brother and stabbing a record executive over a bootlegged record. Later he affirms his elation at her current state of happiness: “Cried tears of joy when you fell in love/Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her,” before Gloria ends the track with a poem.Įlsewhere, self-criticism abounds. On ‘Legacy’ he discusses his aunt’s abuse by a preacher man on ‘Smile’ he reveals that his mother, Gloria Carter, is gay (“Mama had four kids but she’s a lesbian/Had to pretend so long, she’s a thespian”). The title track, named after the time he woke up to began working on the album, is both an open apology to his wife and young daughters for past misdeeds, and a rumination on their future consequences: “And if my children knew, I don’t even know what I would do/If they ain’t look at me the same/I would probably die with shame/‘You did what with who?’/What good is a ménage à trois when you have a soulmate?” The fallout from those revelations is undoubtedly at the heart of his decision to open up on 4:44 like never before. Beyoncé’s album was the pop cultural event of 2016, a work dealing with black social politics, sisterhood… and husband Jay-Z’s infidelity.
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