Pop Culture Happy Hour - Jay-Z

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Jay-Z has been everywhere lately. It’s been 30 years since his acclaimed debut Reasonable Doubt, and he celebrated with a series of concerts at Yankee Stadium. And now there’s the HBO docuseries, JAŸ-Z In 8, in which Jay-Z dissects his catalog with producer Rick Rubin. The series hopes to further cement his legacy as one of the most revered lyricists of our time. But Jay-Z (or JAŸ-Z, as he’s styled it lately.) has always been a polarizing figure, both in his personal life and as a business mogul. So what does this series accomplish?Looking for more episodes about music? Check out these:Ariana Grande stares down the public eye in 'Petal'It's time to talk about how y'all act at music festivalsMost overused songs in moviesConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

So you may have noticed Jay-Z's been everywhere lately. It's been 30 years since his acclaimed debut, Reasonable Doubt, and to celebrate, he put on a series of sold-out, star-studded concerts at Yankee Stadium, made a big show of cutting off his famous locks, and now this. Jay-Z, an 8 in HBO docu-series where Hove dissect song lyrics across his catalog with the storied producer Rick Rubin. The obvious play here is to further cement his legacy as one of the most revered lyricists of our time. But Jay-T's always been this kind of polarizing figure when it comes to how he's moved as a business mogul and in his personal life.

So who is this series for exactly and does it do what it sits out to do? I'm Aisha Harris, and we're going to get into that here on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour with culture writer and critic Shemira Ibrahim. Hi, Shemira, great to have you here. Hey, Aisha. Great to be here, as per usual. Yes, yes, yes. So, look, the concept here is pretty simple. Over eight episodes, it's just Jay and Rubin sitting in the middle of an empty lavish hall in Paris, playing and then picking apart tracks like Meet the Parents and Can I Live?

And it's shot in black and white by the great cinematographer Bradford Young, who worked on the movie's Arrival and Selma. Jay-Z is a producer on this project, as is Rick Rubin and Daniel Kaluya. So essentially, this is like old-school rap genius annotations or a collegiate English masterclass, but make it high art. Right, right? I mean, I feel like it's many things. I'm not entirely sure that I feel like it's a documentary, though, which is kind of my sticky point on how it's been packaged, you know? That is absolutely fair. I think we can kind of debate those merits. Absolutely. But yeah, Jay-Z&Aid is airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max. And so Shamira, I guess, let's just get into it. Like, who do you think this was meant for? And generally speaking, do you think it's doing what it set out to do, as I've already kind of asked. I'm curious what you're thinking is on that front. Well, I think that's my ultimate question, right? I don't know what it sets out to do. I don't know if it sets out to provide novel insight into Jay Z's lyricism, which is a project he's done repeatedly over the year, starting probably with the early 2010s with Decoded, which he worked on directly with Dreamhampton as a book. Or if it's supposed to provide novel insight into his life, which there are glimpses of Jay Z's life, but there aren't really extensive swatches of novel insight that the average. superfan wouldn't already know, unless you're really curious to know how he feels about the

Tupac Biggie Beef, in which case, then you will find out plenty, I guess, right? You know? Sure, sure. This was the record that made Tupac and I have a little bit of problem. Just because him and Big, and I was next to Big and thing. But on his song, when he ends it, I'm warning you, the next thing he said, I'm warning you was most hated in California. I was like, nah, no, no, no.

You're taking that out. I don't want to be a part of that. I think it's like a remarkable testament to like the desire of someone as large as Jay-Z to feel the need to cement and establish his legacy, but also rub up against his inclination to have as much control as possible over his narrative and the myth of his rise as possible, right? It leaves you with like this tension of like, well, you want me to celebrate you, but you want to control what I know about you to celebrate and also resist any interrogation. He bristles against the idea that we have a.

right to challenge him on his perceptions of things, right? Right. And so we really get like a really lovely exhibit with a fascinating sound system. And I really enjoyed listening to the crisp audio. I don't know if I came away feeling like I had a new perspective on Jay-Z. Granted, I grew up in New York, so I've been exposed to Jay-Z for the last three decades, right? But I don't know if I really felt like I came away with something novel or insightful, except for maybe some resolution of like longstanding lyrical debates that we've had.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would count myself as a very casual Jay-Z fan. Like, I was a suburban kid whose parents would only let, like, the closest I could get to buying a rap album when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12 was Will Smith, Big Lily Style and Millennium. And so, like, my exposure to Jay-Z was, like, purely through radio and MTV at the time, big pimping. Can I get a, like, that was, like, kind of what I knew. And as I've grown older, obviously, I followed him through his proximity to Beyonce and also his bigger. songs that he's done with collaborations with other artists. So I'm a very casual fan, and yet I feel the same way, which is like I don't feel like I learned anything new that I didn't already know about him,

you know? Like, this is the type of thing where I think the hardcore Jay-Z fans who, I hate to say it, who are not very critical about him as an artist or as a figure in the public square will probably gobble this up, I think some people who hold on tightly to this idea of preserving hip-hop and preserving the artistry of hip hop will find things to like about this because we'd say what you will about him. I think that he is kind of one of those people who still stands in for a certain idea of what hip hop used to be. And so hearing him dissect lyrics and paying so much attention to lyrics when we've kind of moved away from that as a culture where lyrics are less important, generally speaking, in hip hop or some people would argue that they are less important

depending on the biggest mainstream artists that you're talking about, I totally see why this would be attractive to them. Like, there's a moment in the first episode where he and Rick Rubin are chatting, and at one point he says, like, oh, we'll get to that later. Like, just as him to sign. And my grandfather had his demons, you know, he's a bunch of demons. He got his, you know, we'll get into that. And I was like, oh, this is very planned.

Like, you can tell the way that Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin also directed. He's not just a producer, but he also directed this series. I just found it so calculated and sterile. Yeah. There was no medianess. Like, yes, you can dissect it line by line and you feel as though maybe you're getting something, but I didn't feel like I was actually getting much out of it, right?

You know, what's so fascinating to me is despite how curated it was, it felt like it just surprisingly lacked structure. Like, I was really trying to figure out what the connecting threads were between the selection of songs or even the direction of questioning, it wasn't like the songs are grouped by album, right? No, no. In some ways, I guess they were grouped by topic. Like, there were sometimes where it seemed like, okay, we're talking about like Jay-D's canon

of like really, you know, open, emotional songs, which are pretty limited in his catalog. So everyone kind of knows, obviously, 4-4 is the more recent one where he's talking openly about infidelity. But it really felt like for the breadth of the conversation, it still seemed to, you know, kind of be a little directionless. And I still don't really understand what the connecting philosophy was around what was supposed to be communicated. Aside from the fact that Jay-Z has a remarkable, and I mean this sincerely, remarkable capacity

for retaining his lyrics and retaining the intention and memory associated with his songmaking and craftsmanship, like the fact that he can have almost instant recall of songs is a testament to his one-of-a-kind unique skill set as an MC. I just don't know if beyond like a few seemingly unintentional moments, we really get much clarity as to his whole animus as an artist, how he feels like it affects his life and how he looks at establishing his legacy from now on. Yeah. To that point, I think what you're saying about his memory and also just like while watching this, I was like, he's a very personable person. I can see why people would be drawn to him. And I can understand. understand, like, he is very affable. Like, there's not a lot of friction here.

But, like, he has a way of saying nothing, but also making it feel somewhat compelling in a way that he says it and the way he just chats. But I do think this is where I butt up against, you know, you and me both, we have experience interviewing people. Neither of us are famous. And this is where I come up across this where it's like, I am getting very sick of celebrities interviewing other celebrities. I mean, let's get into it.

Can we talk about it? Because to be frank, you know, one of the things that stood out to me is like just a few months ago, Jay-Z had a very publicized interview with GQ's Fasier Tharp. And, you know, even if you may have, you know, criticisms about the form or whether or not it was too complimentary, one thing that Frasier was successfully able to do is get JZ to directly answer specific questions about his perspectives on specific things in his life on record. Yeah. I feel like we spent so much time in this docu-season. talking around the friction around things without just addressing it head on.

And when there were moments to address it, it was almost ignored. Like, at one point, you know, they talk a little bit about his relationship with Nas. Right. They mentioned the beef. And, like, Jay-Z starts to launch into, you know, him be like, well, me and Nas are friends now. And, like, Rick kind of changed the topic. He's like, no, I want to hear more about that. When did you and now stop becoming great friends?

Like, what was that process towards healing that? This is something that is worth, you know, sinking into, right? Or when they talk about, you know, Jay-Z's history with Kanye, which obviously we know is notably fractured and volatile, especially in recent years. And, you know, Jay-Z does talk and acknowledge Kanye's influence and greatness, but Shah is just sort of just really acknowledging, like, their fracture and his feeling of betrayal,

although he discusses betrayal mattering to him significantly. Those are just moments where I just felt like, we are really talking around some really pivotal points in Jay-Z's life that are kind of foundational to understanding his legacy as an artist. And I don't really understand. Or rather, I believe that someone who's more attuned to the skill of interviewing would probably have lingered on those points a bit more. Yeah. The thing that happens so often in this series is Rick Rubin will just kind of lay up a very softball, like, tell me about this. Or like, explain the Tupac and Biggie Beef. And then,

Rick Rubin is kind of acting as though he doesn't know these things. Like he's not aware as if he didn't co-found Def Jam Records. Like, okay. And then he's like also sitting there wide-eyed and like sometimes barefoot. I'm like, what are we doing here? Sitting there like a child or just like someone who's just like, wow. Like you could make a meme like a video meme of him. Like every time he says, wow, when his eyes open up are like, yeah, that's so deep.

Like there's just no friction here. And sometimes, like, a song lyric will come up where the R word will come up or a line about Koreans looking like a Korean or a kind of teetering on anti-Semitism line about Jewish people and nothing. No interrogation of that. Right. Obviously, these songs are older and we're in a different time. But, like, if I was a journalist interviewing him, I would be asking him, okay, let's talk about this line. Well, especially if the pretense is we're doing. a close read of your lyrics, right? Like, that's the entire premise here. So, I mean, then let's do

the close read. Like, especially when so much of the conversation, Jay-Z kind of sits on his laurels and cessily to the effect of, I choose my words very intentional. I'm very aware of the multiple interpretations of things. And if you were thinking it could be one or the other, the answer is often that it's both, right? That that is his game of being a wordsmith. That is his approach to semantic and rhetorical wordplay, which I generally think is, impressive and showcases him as like a real master of the English language. Yeah. Again, this is where I keep bumping up against what I think he's trying to do, right?

And as you've already mentioned, he did decoded the book that came out around 2010, The Dreamhampton. And he's done a lot of profiles. He's sat with various people. And he's talked about certain things, but he's talked around them. And I think he kind of lands on like, my music speaks for itself to some extent. But then at the same time, you have him. and his wife, Beyonce, often using signifiers of radicalism, political activism.

And I think about the fact that this series, essentially this rollout is happening and coinciding with the release of former NFL star Colin Kaepernick's new memoir. And in that member, he addresses his interactions with Jay-Z. And Jay-Z's company, Rock Nation, partnered with the NFL, which was a move that was seen by many, including Kaepernick, as effectively undercutting. his protests against police brutality. And then Jay-Z seemed to take a swipe at Kaepernick during a freestyle. He did at one of his recent shows at Yankee Stadium in July. So this all seems at odds with the persona he's trying to craft here in this series because they do kind of touch a little bit

on politics here and sort of what Jay-Z feels his responsibility as a famous person and as a person with power. But it also just seems like we're seeing how that plays out in real life versus how he presents himself here. And I feel like there's just this really fractured juxtaposition between this idea of capitalism and him being able to capitalize on signifiers that suggest, like, I'm doing this for our people, but it's like, I don't know, man. Like that doesn't come out in the series. It doesn't come out in how he moves.

I fully get you on that. And I did find it to be in dialogue with the ongoing conversation with regards to capital. But not in the way that people expect, right? Like I think some people expected like a direct response or, you know, way for him to speak on, well, you've mentioned Kaepernick and your songs or your rhetoric. Now, obviously, the tune has changed, right? But what I found more interesting was that he finds different ways to kind of impress upon both Rick and, of course, you know, the watchers and listeners that the prosperity gospel capitalist approach that he has is not something that he's like capitulating to, right? I think sometimes for some people, the concept for people's like, oh, no, you know, Jay-Z is boss. and sold for in the idea of like he has been told that, you know, he has to be an avatar to

maintain his wealth. Whereas if you watch how he articulates his life experience to Rick Rubin, it's quite clear that his core narrative is, I took capitalism by the reins. I was a hustler and then I turned the rap game into a hustle and it worked. It's very hard for him to fundamentally believe the idea that capitalism and the structure of capitalism can be harmful when he views it as a tool of liberation for himself and a way that he views that rap can be used as a tool of liberation or a tool of motivation for listeners to say, I can do it too, right? Yeah. At one point he talks about the whole Kristall thing where like he and a lot of his cohorts were promoting Christal and then all of a sudden whoever was kind of like the face of

Crystal spoke up and was basically disdainful of this idea that like hip hop embraced it. And so he kind of talks about it here where he's just like, yeah, and then I took them out of my club. Right. That's his idea of like, kind of like sticking it to the man. Exactly. And then, you know, Ace of Spades came, you know, the brand behind Es Spades came and it was a fortuitous opportunity. But it's very clear to me that Jay-Z's perception is that he has been able to amass power through these moves and that is proof of capitalism being a tool to liberate the black underclass, right? It is something that he really genuinely believes and was always then going to be at odd with any political gesture he was making. And it comes back to like when Occupy Wall Street was

big. And Jay had his own counter shirts that said, Occupy All Streets. Again, kind of playing on the big black capitalism work for you. So it's interesting to watch those sort of sentiments and his thinking on those sentiments bleed through, right? He has a point, for example, that he goes on a protracted kind of explanation of his frustration with, he doesn't mention her by name, but Elizabeth Mendez-Berry, who interviewed him a few years back for the village voice and confronted him over his Che Guevara show where he had like a large diamond on. And he directly responded to it in a verse and talked about his Che Guevara with Bling on, I'm Complex. And like it's clear that like it still bristles him a lot, right? Yeah.

All these years later, right? Like it's still something that, you know, gets in his ear. And it's interesting to watch him get so easily frustrated by what are like, yes, maybe pointed, but fairly straightforward critiques of. what people have issue with him. And him still struggled to wrestle with it all these years later. It just seems to be reminiscent of like a lack of willingness to like let himself be interrogated and let himself be challenged. And I think that limitation kind of bleeds through in what we saw on screen.

Yeah. Well, we'll have much more about Jay-Z after the break. Welcome back. Look, I'm not here trying to advocate. Like, I don't need Jay-Z to be the face of a movement, right? Like, I don't want that from him or Beyonce. But, like, I do think if you're going to do what they have done, which is often trade in these signifiers, like, even bringing it back to Kaepernick, like, Cabernick has said, you know, at first he was wearing my jersey, right?

He was, like, supporting me. And then he goes and makes a deal with the NFL. And the series doesn't address that. But I do think that, like, he tries to have it both ways. And while I'm not entirely certain he's going to have his, like, Ed Shearin moment where he, like, is forced to confront it in a way where it's like, you can't just be. a political man. But I do think like this series is kind of like his way of putting it on the record. It's another way to sort of like cement his legacy

and make it seem as though we're going very, very deep because it's eight episodes long and my God, it did not need to be this long. Him and Beyonce are so obsessed with four, the number four. This could have been done in a tight four. It would have worked, I think. Well, I guess I'm curious about this for you. Yeah. Why do you think they went with

this being a video project and not let's say a podcast mini series, right? I don't know how much value the actual visual element of the project really offered. It was crystal clear sonics. Like, whatever speakers they were using in that room. Sounded fantastic. But I'm not really entirely sure if, like, you know, two minutes of Jay and Rex standing and nodding, you know, was particularly conducive to really adding more clarity into what they were talking about. Because I think that Jay-Z, and not to bring Beyonce into this again, but I think both of them, they prize the visual.

They prize it as like a way of, uh, it is, again, it's high art to them. Like I think about when Jay-Z did that stunt with Picasso baby. Yeah. That was like a video. It was him just rapping the same song over and over for how many hours. And in like an art gallery, I think a podcast is too quote unquote lowly for them. Like they wouldn't necessarily say that, but it's like beneath them. Like they see cinema as, which is why they have Bradford Young and why Daniel Kulia is a executive producer.

Like this is a way to elevate this show beyond like what it would be for a podcast. And the fact that it's on HBO. Like I think all those things make it seem way more. And look, we're podcasters. I'm a podcaster. Like I'm not trying to demean the art. I am saying that for them, that would not be enough. And I think there's just a little like it's sexier this way.

Right. One other thing I will say is that this does feature the lyrics on the screen, and I think that adds something to it. And the lyrics do add another element for sure, because I do remember when they put the lyrics to the song, You Don't Know, which there's been a long debate about whether Jay-Z says, sell water to a well or water to a whale, right? Oh, right, right. I remember seeing the lyrics come across the screen and realizing, oh, wow, we finally have the answer. I do think, like, those sort of small moments were kind of like an asset. to the art form, I just wish that the director would have more license to actually give their POV. I think part of my sticking point with projects like this, and I think this includes

his wife to something said, is that even though there's like a celebration of the inclusion into high art, fine art spaces, it seems to always kind of fall short of like embracing the nuances of what makes those art forms powerful, right? So for a documentary, it's not just being able to tell your story. It's really, you know, for someone else, to be able to give in a unique insight into different edges of your life that may not be immediately evident by you just, you know, self-reporting your own narrative. And by taking the reins and curating it for yourself, you kind of rob yourself of that process of discovery, right?

You know? Right. And they have refined the machine that creates the art product, but the actual essential are still kind of just as sparse as they were before. And I even think of the video that they put out about him cutting off his locks. And then it's just like, oh, this is really just an ad for sacred. Like, this is what we're doing here. Like, again, there's this tension.

And I do wonder had they had an actual director, not Rick Rubin, but like someone else, I don't know who, like, Ava Deverne. Or like, I don't know, someone, because Ava Deverna has actually worked with them before. She's done one of their videos. So, like, I could see that being far more interesting visually. But then maybe not, because, again, the way it's. structured is, for the most part, except for one later episode where there's just literally just talking up until like no music except for the end credits. Like it is mostly just them standing in the middle of a room, an empty room, except for, you know, speakers in a table and talking

back and forth and lots of nodding. And yeah, it probably would have been better as a podcast, perhaps, save for the lyrics, like having that cleared up. But yeah, man, I had to roll my eyes so many times during, like, to keep one eye open, like, CBS from Can I Live? And then he's like, it's the CBS logo, but also CBS, as in C Bull. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, grandpa. Okay. Right, right. Yeah. And to give it some credit, I do think there were some moments that were remarkably insightful, right? Like, I think this is arguably the longest that Jay Z has gone on record about his relationship with Biggie Smalls, the rapper Notorious B-I-G since Biggie's passing. We've heard like bits and pieces, right?

But it was as a rap fan, as someone who grew up loving Jay lyrics and Biggie lyrics, to hear Jay talk about punching in lyrics with Biggie on Brooklyn's finest. Like that is, you know, an all-time moment for me, right? They came in and punched it up and kind of bounced off each other. Genuinely great. Hearing Jay-Z talk about the mechanics of what makes Biggie's. voice and vocals so distinctive, it's actually magnificently insightful into the way that his brain works and how he thinks about the mechanics of a voice and even the way he talks about how he views

his voice evolving over his own career. Like those are the points where you're like, okay, this is the magic, the moments where there is that just like really sharp pointed clarity about just the music industry and how the industry really affects celebrity and individuals and how it can swallow you whole, all those kind of. brief glimpses into like how Jay-Z feels about his rise in New York and his rise in rap, something that he never really intended to do, right? Like he says, he thought he was just going to essentially make one rap album and then go and become a rap mogul, which is an interesting thing to even contend with, right?

Yeah, yeah. And instead of really lingering on that, we just end up meandering in so many places that you could almost blink and miss the moments where it does become exceptional. And I think those moments are exceptional to listen to. Yeah. And I want to stand up for a moment because I don't want to sound like a complete hater because there were moments, like you said, that there is some clarity. I think also, you know, not that these are things that I didn't already know, but I think

if we're thinking about other audiences and especially younger audiences, there is a little bit of like a lay of the land of what hip hop was like at that, like, when he was coming up. And I think that is another way in the, like, an oral tradition of like putting these things down. and having it for the next generation. Like, I think there's a little bit of an attempt to, like, put him into the context of history, but also kind of explain hip-hop in a way that, like, perhaps younger generations may not be aware of. So I think those moments, and especially when Rick Rubin, like, drops the whole, like,

I'm just a fan act. And actually, like, when there is actually some back and forth and they're both trading on stories and, like, talking about the same people that they both know, those are the moments where it's like, okay, this is where the celebrity and celebrity interview can have some value. I still think it's overvalued. And again, we don't get enough of like, even just moments where Rick Rubin is asking him, you know, like, do you have any regrets or like, he kind of talks about some songs he would redo. But I want to hear more about the failures. Like, I want to hear him talk about like DOA. Like, I want to hear him talk about that and whether his perspective has

change. Like, yeah, I just, I just kind of wanted more of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that brings us to the end of our show, Shamira Ibrahim. Thanks so much for being here. This was, this was fun. I had a lot of fun. Thanks as always, you know. I'm looking forward to seeing you here for the 30th anniversary of the Black album, which is sooner than I want to miss. Oh, yes. Oh, man, what a way to feel not as young anymore. That's for sure. This episode was produced by Mike Gatsif, Lenin Sherburn, Kaden Mills, and Liz Metzger, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy.

Hello, Kim-in, provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy R from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.