At the time, he said he’d like to sit Noel down and teach him about hip-hop. What would he play him? “So many different albums. I’d play him NWA [Straight Outta Compton, 1988] so he could really understand the angst and what was going on in LA at the time. Because hip-hop is not just, ‘Fuck, bitch, shit, ass, motherfucker.’ You know, understand that the riots were happening, and LA was burning, and these kids were in the hood in Compton and the cops would just drive by, beat them up and then drop them off in an opposing gang’s neighbourhood. That’s deliberate; like, you could die. This is real, this really happened. So when you hear a song like Fuck Tha Police, that’s not because they think they’re tough, that’s because they’ve been beat and they’re fighting back.”
As well as Tupac, Biggie Smalls and Dr Dre, Jay would also make Noel listen to the original God MC, Rakim, to teach him about intelligence of the rhymes; to show how far ahead of his time Rakim was in the late-80s. “When people was rhyming [raps] ‘I don’t care, the rocks ya’ll wear’ he was using couplets like [raps Let The Rhythm Hit ‘Em] ‘I’m the arsenal/I got artillery/Lyrics of ammo/Rounds of rhythm’,” he pauses for breath. “It was mind-blowing that someone was doing this.”
— The Magna Carter: Jay-Z | Music | The Guardiantake seven emcees, put ‘em all in line
