At the same time, the promotion was already starting, which isn’t my favorite part of the process. I’m still a guarded person when I’m not in the
booth or onstage or with my oldest friends, and I’m particularly wary of the media. Part of the pre-release promotion for the album was a listening
session in the studio with a reporter from The Village Voice, a young writer named Elizabeth Mendez Berry. I was playing the album unfinished; I
felt like it needed maybe two more songs to be complete. After we listened to the album the reporter came up to me and said the strangest thing:
“You don’t feel funny?” I was like, Huh?, because I knew she meant funny as in weird, and I was thinking, Actually, I feel real comfortable; this is
one of the best albums of my career. … But then she said it again: “You don’t feel funny? You’re wearing that Che T-shirt and you have—” she
gestured dramatically at the chain around my neck. “I couldn’t even concentrate on the music,” she said. “All I could think of is that big chain
bouncing off of Che’s forehead.” The chain was a Jesus piece—the Jesus piece that Biggie used to wear, in fact. It’s part of my ritual when I record
an album: I wear the Jesus piece and let my hair grow till I’m done.
This wasn’t the first time I’d worn a Che T-shirt—I’d worn a different one during my taping of an MTV Unplugged show, which I’d taped with the
Roots. I didn’t really think much of it. Her question—don’t you feel funny?—caught me off guard and I didn’t have an answer for her. The
conversation moved on, but before she left she gave me a copy of an essay she wrote about me for a book about classic albums. The essay was
about three of my albums: Reasonable Doubt, Vol. 3 … Life and Times of S. Carter, and The Blueprint. That night I went home and read it. Here
are some highlights:
On “Dope Man” he calls himself, “the soul of Mumia” in this modern-day time. I don’t think so.
And:
Jay-Z is convincing. When he raps, “I’m representing for the seat where Rosa Parks sat/where Malcolm X was shot/where Martin Luther
was popped” on “The Ruler’s Back,” you almost believe him.
And, referring to my MTV Unplugged show:
When he rocks his Guevara shirt and a do-rag, squint and you see a revolutionary. But open your eyes to the platinum chain around
his neck: Jay-Z is a hustler.
Wow. I could’ve just dismissed her as a hater; I remember her going on about “bling-bling,” which was just too easy, and, honestly, even after
reading her essays I was mostly thinking, “It’s a T-shirt. You’re buggin.” But I was fascinated by the piece and thought some more about what she
was saying. It stuck with me and that night I turned it around in my head.
He explained it in Decoded:
