The third track on "4:44" - "Smile" - features Jay-Z's mother, Gloria Carter, and contains this couplet about her: "Momma had four kids, but she's a lesbian / Had to pretend so long that she's a thespian." His rapping here is buttery and exuberant: "I just wanna see you smile through all the hate / Marie Antoinette, baby, let 'em eat cake." So his approach to Gloria manages to exult her and, for anybody annoyed by his "eat the cake, Anna Mae" line on Beyoncé's 2013 track " Drunk in Love," arguably to exonerate him from having cast himself as Ike Turner to Beyoncé's Tina. To continue reading Billboard’s interview with Jay-Z, click here.11Wesley Morris: I'm a sucker for mommy music. If we’re not, then we’re just trying to find another way to make up for the money being lost on the Internet. If we’re adding value, it’s a partnership. We can’t - as record executives - expect to take someone’s rights and not add value. You could make a 360 deal with an artist and maybe you don’t have that artist two years from now. Or the record company is going to lose out. If you’re sharing and partnering with an artist, you better build an artist. You can’t take someone’s rights, profess to be an expert in that field and then not do anything for it. Being an artist, I’m an artist-friendly executive as well. I believe that 360 becomes a bad deal unless you’re doing artist development. What do you think of the Radiohead model, asking consumers to pay what they think is appropriate? Will any acts on the R&B/hip-hop front embrace that model? I believe that if you are a musician making great music, all the smart guys will figure out the model for what’s next and how to monetize it. People tend to emulate success, so hopefully they’ll emulate the blueprint of those albums and we’ll have some great music. Where do you see hip-hop a year from now?Īs a person who is optimistic about hip-hop, I look at albums like “American Gangster” and Kanye West’s “Graduation” as albums that people can emulate because they were made with nothing but the highest of integrity and passion about putting your all into the music. I have no choice, whether it be me or the artists I align myself with. I have to take those shots to keep doing it. And I know that’s not popular because hip-hop is a young man’s sport.ĭoes it have to remain a young man’s sport? You’re still recording. I was trying to do different things sonically and with the subject matter stretching the things you can talk about as far as being an adult. I wasn’t completely surprised by the reception to “Kingdom Come.” I knew it wasn’t for everybody. But of course, I love the reception to “American Gangster.” It should sell more than 10 million copies, more than any of the other albums I’ve ever made. I want a record with no obvious singles but just great music. I knew immediately it wouldn’t sell more than “Kingdom Come.” It could, but who knows? If I were a cynical person, I’d just say that people are hypocrites. “American Gangster” seems to be overwhelmingly a critics’ darling. What was your reaction to the public’s reception of “American Gangster” versus last year’s “Kingdom Come?” So to see her come full circle and get her Grammy nods was an incredibly rewarding feeling. Rihanna came out of the gate with huge records our whole thing was to make sure she didn’t get buried under those records and become the “‘Pon the Replay” girl. ![]() ![]() And “Umbrella”‘s nominations for song and record of the year were fantastic. ![]() But we definitely put the work in and it’s great to be recognized for it. So, 26 Grammy nominations that’s not too shabby.
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