Listening to Jay-Z makes for one of the most rewarding experiences you could have as a hip-hop fan. His lyricism is clever and witty without ever sounding belabored when rapping his metaphors. Punchlines aren’t overemphasized, and sly bits of wordplay can fly over your head if you aren’t paying attention. Mix that with a deeply intricate sense of storytelling, and you get a masterclass in the art of rapping.
Even all the way back in 1996, Hov was extremely intentional with how he wanted to convey his art. In a resurfaced 2016 interview with Complex, music engineer Dexter Thibou recalled being in the studio as Jay-Z made Reasonable Doubt. There, he remembered how, even at 26 years old on his first album, Hov was a perfectionist. Every beat, every line, every flow, all measured down to its finest beat.
“Jay’s drive is something I’ll always admire. He was so pristine about his sh*t,” Thibou said of Jay-Z. “If you check the way that that man rhymes from then to now, he really focuses on what he’s saying, how he’s saying it, and where the last line is gonna be. You don’t miss nothing with that. That’s something a lot of dudes was not doing back then. They were trying to be clever and witty, but you’d miss that shit because sometimes they’d mumble they verse.”
Jay-Z Had To Be a Perfectionist To Make an Album Like ‘Reasonable Doubt’
But this obsessive drive to be the best wasn’t just an artistic statement. Instead, he felt like he had to be the best in the world. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have broken his way into the music industry. Given where he was in his life, Jay-Z simply couldn’t afford the prospect of failing on Reasonable Doubt.
“He couldn’t afford not to—it was coming out of his pocket. This was his last straw. He’d been turned down by everybody, and back then, nobody was really loving Jay,” Dexter Thibou continued. “They was making fun of him, calling him ugly and all this other sh*t. And he was doing it by himself. Odds are stacked against him and this is the last one.”
Consequently, Jay-Z would quietly retreat from the partying and mayhem that might’ve occurred in the studio. While everyone else had such fun, nothing mattered more than the music. Even amidst all the chaos, Hov would conjure up a miracle.
“He would zone out. He doesn’t write nothing down but you could see him kinda formulating what he wanted to say,” Thibou added of Jay-Z. “You could catch him mouthing the words. Sometimes he would go into the vocal booth, I’d give him headphones, and he would listen with the headphones on and be in there shadowboxing with the beat, almost. He did that a lot. But I’ve never seen the man write anything down—ever. Never. Other than maybe what he wanted to eat.”
The post The Desperate, Obsessive Mindset Jay-Z Had While Making His Classic Debut Album: ‘This Was His Last Straw’ appeared first on VICE.
