Jay-Z | “King Hova”

“Do not let him leave!” she yells through the mouthpiece of her two-way radio. “Do not let Jay-Z leave that parking lot!” The command is heard by a crew of stage hands who, until now, have been dutifully thanking the biggest rapper in the world for his time, congratulating him on a job well done through the lowered tinted windows of a black semi-stretch limousine. But the white lady is the boss on this night, she’s the one who could make them stand for hours outside a lonely, middle-of-nowhere Long Island high school like a gaggle of Gap employees with expensive headsets but no clothes to fold.

“It was too…too dark. Stop him! I think Mariah wants to do another take!”

Calmly looking out of the car’s back window, the man we spent the summer calling Jigga tells his driver to move off. He came to perform his verse on “Heartbreaker” for a Fox-TV special that Ms. Carey is filming at her old high school. He didn’t wear the green and white school-colors outfit they had left in his trailer for him; he didn’t dance with the cheerleaders. He just came to spit his 8 bars. And now it’s time to bounce. The problem is that this stage manager is bugging and one of her eager longhaired assistants has stepped in front of his limousine.

“Miss, we have to go. I’m mastering my album tonight and homeboy gotta move.”

Dripping with sweat, two clipboards and a bottle of water precariously balanced in her arms, Miss it’s-all-about-Mariah cries about how important the show is, logs the days and nights she’s spent awake preparing for every last detail, and begs our star to just wait a few more minutes.

But before she can finish, Jay-Z is gone. Bolting out the other door, with the young stage hand still daring to stand in front of the car, he jumps into a black Denali truck that had pulled up on the other side. Suddenly all that was left was the sound of a car screeching away and the copy of Mariah’s autographed Rainbow CD our hero left on the limousine’s seat. “He’s gone!” the woman despaired. “We lost him...”

Hova!

“I got to get me some people like that,” Jay-Z said later, now comfortably on his way back into New York City. “Did you see how fast she was running?”

Perhaps what was more remarkable about the scene was the sound a gym full of pre-pubescent fans makes when a certain star rapper comes to town. It’s a wail like no other. But when you’re speaking of Jay-Z, excessive behavior feels necessary. He’s only the artist who sold over five million copies of his latest album, In My Lifetime Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life; he’s only the artist who had the #1 radio single in the entire country last year with “Can I Get A”; he’s only the artist who on any given night could have heard at least three of his songs tear clubs up from sea to sea, one of which was an anthem he made out of his own name.

In 1999, Shawn Carter should have been better known as King Hova. No one dominated the game more completely, no one spit more memorable rhymes, no one made more money. Sure, DMX sold as many records, but it took him two albums to do it. Jay-Z experienced one of those magical hip-hop moments when the streets love you, the charts love you, and everywhere you go you hear the sound of your own voice. In his case, that deep Marcy Projects, Brooklyn drawl that can take its time or come real fast, but either way always seems to end in that confident chuckle, or his signature “Ya heard!”

“We could have still been working that album right now,” he says while waiting for his food at a SoHo New York caviar spot he likes for the food not the bourgeouis atmosphere. “We could be on, like, ‘Paper Chase’ or something. Brand new video. Buzzworthy.”

Jay has a way of boasting with a confidence born out of his recent success, but is also a real part of his personality. He thinks he’s been this way ever since as a teenager his street pharmacy start-up was the block’s big hit, or maybe it was because his mom always told him to go the distance for anything he felt good about. If you’re right, you’re right. Probably the same reason he got suspended for swinging on his music teacher in junior high.

“Vol. 2 sold like over 300,000 units its first week. Then three months later it went back up over 300,000 again. It was just amazing! When I first made the album, some days I thought it may be too hard for people. Not for white suburbia or nothing, just for regular fucking people. So I couldn’t fathom five million—nothing like that, that wasn’t on my mind at all. Two, I was good with two!”

The question is what’s on his mind now that the life and times of Shawn Carter will continue to be told on a new album simply titled In My Lifetime Volume 3, due three days after Christmas, the last soundscan day of the millenium: December 28, 1999.

“I should call this album ‘Reaffirming My Position,’ ” he joked later that night while blasting “It’s Hot” a fierce Timbaland-produced drum-and-handclap cut in a Sony Studios’ soundbooth. “I just really want to get everything out so when I do move on, I feel that I’ve done all I can do. Sooner or later you know can’t be recording forever.”

Hold up. Stop. Reverse the tape. For the record, no, Jiggaman is not about to retire. At least not while he can still can find ample things to challenge him.

“I took all my frustrations out this time and got back to the shit that was on my mind. I just had two friends, young dudes like twenty-four, one just got fifteen years the other is looking at twenty. But automatically once you make moves then street people perceive you a different way. They think you soft or something. You ain’t been schemin’ on me, what makes you think that it’s cool now?

“So it was way, way bigger than music for me this time. It was a lot of street shit as far as the music.”

Zoned-out Tricky called it pre-millennium tension. Jay just calls it hip-hop.

“[The music] is more therapy for me then, ‘Here you listen to this record and you change your mind.’ But after a while, no matter how many people fool themselves like ‘I’m the same nigga,’ after a while you are just making music. You’re going into the studio with a purpose.”

It’s a lesson one young Roc-A-Fella gun is going to have to learn the hard way. Last year, a young thug named Beanie Siegel saw Jay-Z coming out of a club in Philadelphia. His boys always told him his distinct nasal voice would make him a star, so he rushed the spot, spit some flames, and now The Truth, Beanie’s Roc-A-Fella solo debut, is one of the most anticipated rookie albums to come around in years.

But Beanie is new to the rap game. And for the moment, at least on the industry side, he’s not playing to win. After a well-known Philly DJ allegedly started selling a bootleg CD called The Best of Beanie Siegel around the hood, Beanie took it hand-to-hand in the radio station’s offices with the offender—an act that didn’t go over too well with the station’s head of programming. Quickly the station said they were going to ban Beanie, Roc-A-Fella and even Def Jam artists from their airwaves. In a class-is-in-session ride to New Jersey late one night, our brotha with the platinum Range calmly asked his young apprentice to try and see the big picture.

“Everything you do affects somebody now, man,” Jay said, keeping his eyes on the rear view mirror. “You’re not just Beanie Siegel anymore. People are going to look at everything you do.”

“But I’m a street nigga,” Beanie responds, pleading his case. “Nobody ever sat me down and explained to me how to do all this. I’ve been on the street for years, and I’ve never been under as much stress or been as confused as I am now.”

“But look who you talking to? I’ve done everything you will ever do…and I’ve probably made every mistake you will ever make. You’ve got nothing to prove to nobody. But you gotta ask yourself what you want. People would kill for your talent. I know straight up murderers who would kill three motherfuckers right now just to know how to rhyme like you do. Nobody wants to be on the streets.”

Beanie gets quiet.

There was a transition period for Jay-Z, a time when he had to try to apply the hustle of the streets to a high-stakes, winner-take-all hip-hop music industry that likes to describe itself as a “game.”

“See I came into this a little easier than [Beanie]. I had to manage a lot of different situations already. I knew how to be savvy or slick, how to handle money. All he know is the street, how to be a thug.

“I just want Beans to think about it like family. If you my man, I’m not going to go shoot up the house next door to you because then something might happen to you. I’m thinking about you as a friend.”

Jay’s voice lowers to almost a whisper. It’s not his natural speaking voice as other writers have suggested—he’s normally quite loud when he’s among heads he knows—but when he’s talking about something serious, something he’s given a lot of thought to, he speaks very carefully, cautiously, preferring to stare down at the table in front of him then to make constant eye contact. He’ll look up only to catch your reaction, to see if you’re someone he wants to keep talking to.

“But that ain’t for everybody. People take the word ‘friend’ for granted. I’m serious about my friends. I’d put myself on the line for them. That’s why I don’t let too many people get into that inner space ‘cause they might not take it as serious as I do. They might put me in jeopardy.” And even though Roc-A-Fella rolls deep—it’s not a surprise for a caravan of more than thirty artists, assistants, promo kids and just random girls in Jigga Wear minis to roll to any major event Jay will be at—the label, at its core, still consists of only three people: Jay, CEO Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, the somewhat invisible third partner of the empire who Jay now enjoys seeing “get into the music more.”

“I’m big on honor. The people that was in my corner, the people that ride with me, I’m there for them, that’s why Roc-A-Fella is not something that somebody gave me or gave us, this is something we built from the ground up, from nothing.”

That desire, in effect, to be the voice of the people led to the creation of Reasonable Doubt. Here, Jay served as participant and narrator, a full-time player who could deftly explain the rules of engagement late at night after he survived the day’s dealing and stacked all his cheddar. It was hip-hop’s version of The Last Poets’ Hustlers Convention.

“I didn’t have any purpose then but to tell my story. And to tell it cleverly. I was just trying to say the hottest shit to make the niggas around me be like, ‘Ohhhh, you remember that shit?’ ”

And he had a lot of practice. Before the release of that album, Jay spoke of how he used to constantly make songs. He would worry about creating a style and developing a craft. It’s the same focus he applied to lunch the day he spent twenty minutes building the perfect turkey sandwhich.

“But I still think Reasonable Doubt was my best album, at least lyrically.”

A surprising comment from someone who’s had fans steady trying to figure out his rhymes, years later finding metaphors in lyrics their author never wrote down.

“As far as making songs, song structure, I’m way better than I was before. But I’m not better lyrically, ‘cause that was just a whole different time period. It was hunger. I didn’t have no company, nobody would sign me, and everybody around was hot—famous hustlers like Fat Cat and my man Danny.”

So Reasonable Doubt must join the ranks of other stand-out first albums like Illmatic, Ready 2 Die, Doggystyle. But even if Jay doesn’t feel like he’s pushing his rhymes forward, other artists don’t seem to care. The S. Carter Ghostwriting Academy is still churning out hits. Just ask Dr. Dre.

“You know how fast I wrote ‘Still Dre’?” he asked the night before, staring out of the limo window probably crafting another rhyme in his head as he talked. “Most of that stuff is done right on the spot, but when I write a song for someone else, I can’t give them nothing less than what I would give myself. I think how can I put myself into Dre? They want to know if you still got it...They want to know how I feel about it.

Jay started his ghostwriting career at the suggestion of Violator boss Chris Lighty. It’s a skill that betrays one of hip-hop’s most cherished commandments, but Jay ain’t the one asking for help.

“Before I was into talking about experiences and all the shit that people go through, I was real creative. But all that quirky, ill shit was gone [after Reasonable Doubt] and I was thinking that [ghostwriting] was another way for me to be creative. I get a lot of joy out of those type of songs.”

Even when, like with Foxy Brown’s Jay-Z-written rhyme to her lost brother, “If I,” it deals with somebody else’s tragedy. Be glad though, because we may not hear Jay spit too many more personal tales about his own life. “Regrets” and “You Must Love Me” may have been the most moving minutes on each of the first two albums, the kind of songs that separated Jay-Z from many of his strictly cock-grabbing rhyme brethren, but a “Money Ain’t A Thang” is a lot easier to make.

“ ‘Regrets’ was serious. I got like fucking hard rock niggas just coming up to me breaking down. And then I was gonna take people even further, but,” he pauses, thinking back in his mind, “but I didn’t feel it, you know what I mean? I didn’t get back what I put into the song. So it was like, ‘I know what y’all want.’ ”

If there’s truly a difference between need and want, clearly a distinction that can be made in life between the things that drive us and simply those things we strive to acquire, then fame for Shawn Carter falls in the realm of the latter. It’s not that he doesn’t push himself to be successful, doesn’t work hard to achieve or strive to be the best at what he does, but he doesn’t need the experience. He isn’t sparked by the bright lights of anybody’s big city, Jay-Z is comfortable being the hottest nigga out who just happens not to have to keep himself plugged in all the time. And for that reason, baring his soul to the world is not as much of a cathartic experience as it was for, say, Tupac, an artist who was absolutely compelled to bring you into his brilliantly maniacal world. For that, maybe he won’t ever fly as high, but maybe he won’t ever come crashing down either.

“I like to see myself as a thinker. I’m always sitting back and observing a lot, more so than moving around and being too extra, too caught up in everything. You got to figure I started leaving town as a young dude. I used to be in strange places with no family. I learned that before you jump in the mix, you gotta know what’s going on—who’s who, what’s what.

“People can take that the wrong way a lot like, ‘Oh, he don’t speak.’ But I’m not going to veer from who I am to please anyone. I’ma be me and I think I’m a lucky dude. I’ve been through a lot of things where it could have easily gone either way. I didn’t have to have been sitting here talking to you right now...I think the only thing that helped me from basically coming out unmarked—like I never did any real time—was aura. I’m a strong believer in that. And I’m a good person.

Hova the God, I should be rapping with a turban...Do you believe?

If one night you ever find yourself looking from the New York side of the Hudson River toward the New Jersey skyline, you may be able to see the balcony area of Jay-Z’s new two-floor penthouse apartment. Or maybe the view’s better from Pennsylvania, the other neighboring state Jigga can see when he looks out of one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows that surround his living room. It’s the kind of spot built, well, for a king. Beanie Siegel, hopefully coming for a throne of his own, looks a little uncomfortable standing amidst such good fortune

“You know the guy who had this spot before me owned a bunch of garbage trucks?” Jay asks Beanie rhetorically. “Ain’t that crazy how some cats can make their money?”

Maybe not as crazy as making millions singing songs about making it: “Money Ain’t A Thang,” “Money, Cash, Hoes,” “Paper Chase.” It’s the ultimate capitalist trifecta, but as he said in another song, “the streets is watching,” and Shawn Carter is a very rich man.

“Money frees you up to do things,” Jay tells me quietly the next evening. “If you want to just get away and go somewhere, you could do that. It gives you that freedom. And it lets you do things for people, it can better the people’s lives around you and that’s a good feeling.”

Surely much of the identity of Jay-Z would be lost without the Bentley, the Rolex diamonds, the $30,000 a week summer home in the Hamptons. He’s still the only brotha who knows the difference between a 4.0 and a 4.6—or at least cares enough to find out. But somehow you get the feeling that Jay comes from “old money.” Maybe it’s all related to that laid-back flow, or the witty sarcasm that permeates his rhymes. But you get the sense this isn’t his first million. I was rocking platinum when all you chicks still thought it was silver

“After a while you gotta be driven by something else,” he admits matter-of-factly. “How much can one nigga make in one place? What the fuck? He got money, I got money, you got money. So fucking what? My whole thing when I make albums is I just want people to be like, ‘Yo, I played that joint all the way through.’ That’s it. That’s the biggest compliment you can pay me right there. I’m simple like that.

Simple enough like the plan for Hard Knock Life: find fourteen hot tracks, enlist thirteen guest artists and try to drop the hottest verse every time. “You can’t say I can’t sell the records now. No one can ever take that from me. So with Vol. 3 I went back to my formula, back to what makes me happy about making music.”

You hear that joyful energy in songs like the DJ Premier-produced “So Ghetto,” the frantic “Come And Get Me,” “Hova Song,” Jay’s welcome to the millennium or “Dopeman,” a mock trial of The State vs. Jay-Z that uses a dramatic Neil Diamond melody producers DJ Clue and Duro played over. At age nine did my first hate crime / Blindfolded expected to walk a straight line / Mind molded, taught to love you and hate mine...Your honor, I no longer kill my people I raise mine / The soul of a million in this modern day time.

“My thing is all beats. I look at them like a puzzle. I really ask myself what is the motion of this beat. There are people that had outstanding tracks and just rapped wrong to it. There’s a reason for that. What you’re saying and the beat didn’t make a marriage.”

There must have been a wedding for “Can I Get A,” a single that at one point last year was receiving over 3,000 radio spins a week with the hook “Can I get a fuck you to all my bitches from my niggas that don’t love hoes...”

“Yeah, sometimes I’m gonna have some six-year-old kids saying something they shouldn’t,” Jay laughs, anticipating the criticism. “But with good parenting I’ve heard kids singing songs all kinds of ways, replacing those words. ‘Can I Get A’ was really the funny shit. We thought we’d just put that out as a white label. But I think it’s just timing. Timing is everything.”

So then will Vol. 3 ever be able to match the success of the last album? Is America really ready to buy five more million copies of some street shit? And if it only sells two million, won’t that mean Jay-Z fell off?

“It’s another thing, man. It’s like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. How many times can you do it? Everybody wants to do that, but the reality of it is, it just don’t happen. Maybe that was just that time period, just a stretch of time to be enjoyed and savored and that’s it.”

They call me dopeman, dopeman / I try to tell them I’m the hope floats man, ghetto spokes-man

Bets are that Jigga will be the #1 nigga on the first day of the year 2000. Not a bad way for hip-hop to start off. And while it’s not fair to go so far as to say Jay’s a reluctant star, he can—like the truest hustler—walk away from the game without regret. Maybe that’s when he’ll make The Black Album he spoke about, a record done with no photo shoots, no videos, no promotional appearances. Just music. Before his death, Jay’s throne partner, The Notorious B.I.G., told me how he envisioned the same thing after putting out what was to be a 3CD Born Again album that would fulfill his commitment to his label and free him up to create without playing. Brooklyn’s finest knew it wasn’t all about them.

“You know what it is,” he said leaving the stage of the Mariah show, “it’s just that people really dig the music. I don’t take it any other way. If I wasn’t doing the music there wouldn’t be all that screaming. I don’t believe that they like me...”

Yeah we do, Jay. Believe that.