Who is the author of decoded

Add to Cart. Buy from Other Retailers:. Nov 16, ISBN Dec 07, ISBN Paperback —. Add to Cart Add to Cart. About Decoded Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.

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Thank you! Your subscription to Read More was successful. To help us recommend your next book, tell us what you enjoy reading. It was just a circle of scrappy, ashy, skinny Brooklyn kids laughing and clapping their hands, their eyes trained on the center.

I might have been with my cousin B-High, but I might have been alone, on my way home from playing baseball with my Little League squad. I shouldered through the crowd toward the middle—or maybe B-High cleared the way—but it felt like gravity pulling me into that swirl of kids, no bullshit, like a planet pulled into orbit by a star.

His name was Slate and he was a kid I used to see around the neighborhood, an older kid who barely made an impression. In the circle, though, he was transformed, like the church ladies touched by the spirit, and everyone was mesmerized. He was rhyming, throwing out couplet after couplet like he was in a trance, for a crazy long time—thirty minutes straight off the top of his head, never losing the beat, riding the handclaps.

He never stopped moving, not dancing, just rotating in the center of the circle, looking for his next target. The sun started to set, the crowd moved in closer, the next clap kept coming, and he kept meeting it with another rhyme.

It was like watching some kind of combat, but he was alone in the center. All he had were his eyes, taking in everything, and the words inside him. I was dazzled. Then: I could do that. That night, I started writing rhymes in my spiral notebook. From the beginning it was easy, a constant flow. For days I filled page after page. One day she brought a three-ring binder home from work for me to write in. The paper in the binder was unlined, and I filled every blank space on every page. My rhymes looked real chaotic, crowded against one another, some vertical, some slanting into the corners, but when I looked at them the order was clear.

I connected with an older kid who had a reputation as the best rapper in Marcy—Jaz was his name—and we started practicing our rhymes into a heavy-ass tape recorder with a makeshift mic attached. The first time I heard our voices playing back on tape, I realized that a recording captures you, but plays back a distortion—a different voice from the one you hear in your own head, even though I could recognize myself instantly.

Though my mastery of this content is incomplete, that just means my students and I are on a quest for knowledge together. Sometimes it can be tough as a teacher to let go of needing to have all the answers, but the rewards are often worth such a risk.

Although Decoded came too late for this version of the unit, it will doubtlessly inform my planning next time around. View all 4 comments. Jan 30, Karen rated it liked it. Oh yes I did read this. I have only heard one Jay-Z song all the way through, and most of this book consists of him interpreting his lyrics, defining and defending the language and the life behind the songs.

I must say, in full disclosure, that I rarely listen to rap and hardly consider it to be music; and I am someone who listens to almost every genre out there. I have dismissed rap as misogynistic, violent and derogatory. They freely "borrow" Oh yes I did read this. They freely "borrow" steal music and lyrics from other songs and most times the original is better. Here I gave Sean Carter his due, I listened to his story. I really would prefer he write an actual memoir, because the autobiographical parts of this book were interesting and heart-breaking.

He would probably contend that his lyrics ARE his memoirs. I can say that the book is beautifully put together, and I was frequently checking the credits in the back to identify some of the more stunning visual components. It is almost a coffee-table book, and that might be what the true intention was here.

To create a beautiful presentation of rap lyric as poetry, of Jay-Z as artist and worthy of this kind of "buy it in the museum gift shop" tome.

If you are a fan of rap, this would be a must-have. If I were teaching social studies in high school do they still teach social studies?

Get them to open up, yo. Jan 23, C. G rated it it was amazing Shelves: autobios , street-lit. This took me almost 2 months to complete, and that's actually the pace that I'd recommend reading it at. If I were to make a list of books that I wish all Americans would read, this one would make the cut.

I doubt that Jay Z and I see eye to eye on all the issues, but that didn't really matter to me while I read this. Before reading this book, I hadn't really listened to Jay Z's work besides hearing it on the radio, but considering the complexity of his lyrics and how attentive I am w 4. Before reading this book, I hadn't really listened to Jay Z's work besides hearing it on the radio, but considering the complexity of his lyrics and how attentive I am when I listen to the radio, that doesn't count for much.

All I really knew was that he's megarich and married to Beyonce. I figured he'd be smart, but there was a depth and vulnerability in his book that really humanized him for me. He writes with a nuance, com passion, and perspective that I can't help but admire, and he tells stories about a culture that is often underrepresented and misunderstood. I'm putting this book on my "street lit" shelf because of his insight into the settings and mindsets found in street lit fiction.

If you read only one book in the genre, read this one. Overall, fantastic. I wouldn't say it was a particularly gripping read for me, and I imagine Jay Z fans will get a lot more out of it than I did. But regardless of your familiarity with his music, I recommend you check it out. Feb 08, Ryan rated it really liked it Shelves: nonfiction , , music , zpublished. If anyone has ever been curious about the pure gamesmanship of wordplay involved with rap May 03, Roger rated it it was amazing.

I flipped through other goodreads reviews and some people called it a memoir; it is. Some called it a scrapbook; it is. Some called it a tabletop book; it is. To be honest, before even reading this book, I think I was inclined to give it five stars. I can recite every line from The Blueprint and Reasonable Doubt, along with individual songs from other albums. I can even remembering hooking with Jay Z on the radio. If I were to specifically recommend this book, it would be to two types of people: Those who love Jay Z and those that hate hip-hop because they believe it is misogynistic, violent, etc.

If you love Jay, then you'll love how he breaks down the lines of his songs. You'll love the looks into his personal life, especially as a public figure that guards his private life as well as he does. The book is a glimpse through hip hop history through the eyes of one of the greatest that ever picked up a mic.

This is Mozart talking about classical music, Jordan talking about basketball, Shakespeare talking about literature; you may or may not believe that Jay Z belongs in that company, but in hip hop, he stands on that mountain top.

I've always analyzed lyrics on my own so much of what he said was known to me. However, the way he analyzed the sounds and the breakdown of rhythm such as Run and his percussion like rhymes really got to me. For the people who dislike hip hop, I think this is a book they would enjoy and a book that would clear some preconceived notions.

Instead, the book will showcase the reasons why people love hip hop, and show that it is more than just thugs talking about shooting each other and having sex. Whether or not you come away from this book liking hip hop will be relative to the individual, but after reading this book, you will have respect for the craft and for the man at its forefront: H-O-V.

Jan 18, BookOfCinz rated it really liked it Shelves: real-life-sh-t , biography-and-autobios , loved , inspiring-and-motivating. What a powerful read. I am actually surprised at how relatable, informative, historical, real and well put together this book was. My surprise also points out one of the major points Jay-Z made in the book, why am I so surprised that a hip-hop ar What a powerful read. My surprise also points out one of the major points Jay-Z made in the book, why am I so surprised that a hip-hop artiste wrote a great autobiography?

Before starting this book I could explicitly say, I am not a huge Jay-Z fan, but after finishing this book I think I am a fan of the man, not so much the music, but him as a person. I would have loved to be privy that that information but I guess you can only fit so much in a page book. While I was reading the book I got a little annoyed that Jay-Z didn't organize this autobiography in a chronological order, it felt a little all over the place.

But as I continue reading, Jay-Z mentioned that his life is like poetry and not like prose, so it makes sense that his book wouldn't follow a prose-like layout. I definitely recommend this book; it will surprise and leave you in awe.

Apparently Jay-z has a photographic memory, cool huh?! May 20, Steve rated it it was amazing. Wow, one of my favorite all-time books! He is also ADD and can't sit still. As a result he has always Wow, one of my favorite all-time books!

As a result he has always been an entrepreneur even as a drug dealer! His secret to entrepreneurial success?

Writing everything down and being systematic. If he wasn't a famous rapper he'd be successful at something else, no question. There is none of the braggadocio in his raps - which he spends a while explaining in the book. This is a modest and humble account that provides real insight into his character. The notes and explanations to his songs are without question a highlight of the book. So, go and read it! Jan 10, Aleeda rated it it was amazing Shelves: read.

People who think they know me will find it hard to believe I read this book, much less rated it amazing. Perhaps that is how Jay-Z feels when people write him off as a drug-dealing, gun-loving, woman-hating gangster thug. Decoded is several books in one: a memoir, a history lesson, a social commentary, a book of poetry, and a set of Cliff Notes.

First the memoir: Jay-Z gives a honest account of the life that he lead on the way to selling millions of records. His story is raw, warts and all; growi People who think they know me will find it hard to believe I read this book, much less rated it amazing.

His story is raw, warts and all; growing up in the projects, with dealers as the only successful men in the community will mark you for life, but according to Jay-Z, it doesn't have to define you.

Jay-Z owns up to everything, and denies nothing, watching and learning from the early rappers, but most importantly, waiting until he could enter the music business on his own terms. He saw early artists lifted up, then cast aside by fickle music companies, saw them make fortunes then lose them, and Jay-Z took copious notes. He tells of selling crack up and down the east coast, and realizing that his rap hustle was as strong, and as profitable, as his street hustle, he is able to take the lessons he learned and repurpose them to his benefit.

In terms of social commentary, Decoded shows how drug-dealing infiltrates a neighborhood, how bad choices are made by kids who don't have many opportunities, and how the government, from social services, to law enforcement is perceived after it abandons then stereotypes an entire community. Jay-Z offers an insider's account of rap's nascent entry into mainstream music, and recognizes the artists who brought rap from the street corner to the recording studios.

From his perspective, elements of rap were about protest, rebellion and freedom of expression. Like Shakespeare, and poetry, rap music can seem like a foreign language, full of swagger, misogyny and brutality. There are also nuances that you might miss, because of bias, or misdirected focus.. Jay-Z selects certain songs and line by line, provides an annotated version. One of the things that surprised me was the deep love of language that Jay-Z possesses. I've always thought he was a talented wordsmith.

I'll admit I was impressed that someone would add rap lyrics to Hard Knock Life from the musical Annie, and I don't have to wonder how he pulled off getting the rights to the song anymore. Now that he has been 'decoded', I can more fully see why Jay-Z has been so very successful. He is all that I believed he was before I started reading; now I understand he is far more. Nov 25, Zack Greenburg rated it really liked it. That said, I thought that Decoded was a beautifully conceived and designed book.

Ultimately, though, I felt that it didn't decode much at all. Decoded has its moments, to be sure. But he glosses over the crucial moments of harrowing tales from his youth "We faced off and guns were drawn, but luckily nobody got shot" and his alleged stabbing of record producer Lance "Un" Rivera in The next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose in the club.

Overall, it was a great commentary on the growth of culture of hip-hop and New York. You are left with an undoubtedly greater appreciation of hip-hop as a art form and music genre. I felt that it lacked consistency and more in-depth detailing. Jay-Z skipped in and out of major moments of his life which could have been explained in more detail. Mar 30, Bruce rated it really liked it Shelves: arts.

Gotta be true to the source material. Exegesis - critical annotations of, and usually accompanied by, a sacred or poetic text Housing projects are a great metaphor for the government's relationship to poor folks: these huge islands built mostly in the middle of nowhere, designed to warehouse lives. People are still people, though, so we turned the projects into real communities, poor or not.

We played in fire hydrants and had Ummm We played in fire hydrants and had cookouts and partied, music bouncing off concrete walls. But even when we could shake off the full weight of those imposing buildings and try to just live, the truth of our lives and struggle was still invisible to the larger country.

The rest of the country was freed of any obligation to claim us. Which was fine, because we weren't really claiming them, either. His lyrics are grouped by chapter and more loosely by topic, each group set apart from the others by illustrations, anecdotes, prefaces, and observations.

It's a handy system, and a fascinating read. Memoir — a stream-of-consciousness autobiography conjured more from the author's personal reflection than arising from contemporaneous notekeeping such as might be found in a journal or diary I've been to shantytowns in Angola that taught me that what we consider to be crushing poverty in the United States has nothing to do with what we have materially — even in the projects, we're rich compared to some people in other parts of the world.

Poverty is relative. We get to know all kinds of government agencies not because of civics class, but because they actually visit our houses and sit up on our couches asking questions.

From the time we're small children we go to crumbling public schools that tell us all we need to know about what the government thinks of us. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because… they don't think of themselves as poor. It's embarrassing. When you're a kid, even in the projects, one kid will mercilessly snap on another kid over minor material differences, even though by the American standard, they're both broke as shit. And ignored. I ran up to my mom's apartment to get something and looked out the window and saw those three new Lexuses gleaming in the sun, and thought, 'Man, we doin' it.

Late in Decoded , rapper Shawn Carter asserts that all rap lyrics including his own as Jay-Z — nay, all poetry, including his own as Jay-Z — are fictional portrayals of the author's true self, even when they are ostensibly autobiographical. What do I know or care for what's real or what's fake? It's all largely outside of my immediate personal experience, but no less convincing or enlightening for all of that. Carter argues that the creation of a sympathetic protagonist is critical to finding an audience, no matter how fantastic or mundane the situations in which the character is placed.

You can only carry this existential concept so far, though. While it's certainly convenient exculpatory? Or, as G. Trudeau puts it in the fourth panel : Jay-Z has well-established street cred. The rest of us lucky enough not to have shared his formative experiences will find Jay-Z's vivid depiction of ghetto life more or less consistent with the Baltimore of the HBO series The Wire.

Of course, there's a limit to how much retelling an author can get away with before the proceedings get dull. This would be a better book if the author avoided repeatedly placing himself on the same cold, windblown, crack-strewn corners in each of the first three chapters. Once you get the idea, it's tempting to skim forward a chapter or two, though that risks missing some unique insights. Still, this is only a problem that infects the first third of the book… and the book's not so long overall that its author can't be indulged.

On the other hand, repetition of Jay-Z's origin story is consistent with Carter's overall output. He writes here that he originally intended the tracks of his first album, Reasonable Doubt , to run the gamut of his life experiences in case he didn't or couldn't follow it up. Yet he did follow it up, and did so with a trilogy of autobiographical recordings Volumes 1, 2, and 3 on the way to releasing 8 studio albums in as many years.

This nonstop output culminates in a "retirement" disk, called The Black Album , his most personal work of all, incorporating as it does a track, "December 4th," that interpolates his mother 's recorded reminiscences of his childhood into the lyrical framework. Gesamtkunstwerk — literally, the "whole art work," but more exactly, the whole-art work; a work of art encompassing multiple art forms, the entirety contributing to a single experience… in this case, multimedia.

Can you judge a book by its cover? As a book, Decoded has the look and feel of your typical coffee-table volume — packed with glossy photos, pencil drawings, and artistically-arranged variable-font typeset. It's not as bulky, though, being of typical trade size. As such, it carries with it all the pretension, aspiration, and aesthetic panache of any exhibit catalog. Here we have Shawn Carter as entertainer; as curator of his Jay-Z persona, life experience, and world view; and as paragon of excellence.

This book is a presentation, a memoir both packed and packaged with value. While adopting such a format always risks subsuming substance to style, to the author's credit the book emerges more handsome than eyesore, and the illustrative style adds to rather than competes with or detracts from its content. It's a tribute to how deeply felt hip-hop is that people don't just sit back and listen to the music — they have to break it down, pick the lyrics apart, and debate the shit with other fans who are doing the same thing.

When people talk about forms of media, sometimes they can compare lean-forward media which are interactive, like video games or the Internet and lean-back media which are passive, like television or magazines. Music can be lean-back sort of media, it can just wash over you or play in the background — but hip-hop is different.

It forces people to lean forward — lean right out of their chairs — and take a position. Music and theater, like all the performing arts, are "lean-forward" if you are participating in them as a player, "lean-back" whether you are experiencing them as audience or critic. The level of engagement or personal relevance you derive from a particular work has no bearing on its nature as an active versus passive experience. Jay-Z sounds insecure when he asserts for rap an importance that transcends its experience, claiming as a distinction the quality of controversy it shares with every art form that enjoys a passionate fanbase.

Jay-Z talks repeatedly in Decoded about wanting to connect with and succeeding in connecting with those who live and grow up in the projects. A self-professed deist, he uses the language of religion both for introspection and rationalization both in his lyrics take Lucifer and D'Evils , for example and prose.

He can be preachy, but then, if we're choosing to read an apologia, who are we to object at his occasional conversion of a confessional into a platform? Screed — a personal or political manifesto intended to shock the author's readership to offend or jolt an audience from complacency The words 'proud to be an American' were not words I'd ever thought I'd say….

Because America, as I understood the concept, hated my black ass. Consider this lyrical sample of the eponymic bridge that leads into the chorus highly vulgar, but what isn't?

The protagonist is punning off various meanings of the word "bitch," to refer variously to unfounded complaints of critics, to a police dog, and then metaphorically to a poseur who can be easily toyed with. But surely, if Carter is such an artiste, what need has he to constantly resort to common obscenity, especially highly-charged derogatory words like "nigga" and "bitch?

For Jay-Z, such language reflects a sense of entitlement arising from his Brooklyn origins; connects him directly to and identifies his work with poor, ignorant blacks living in public housing projects; and through his and others' championing and recontextualization, deliberately elevates the words beyond their hateful origins.

It is linguistic subversion, use the special privilege of his membership in the exclusive hip-hop world. This is Jay-Z as Humpty Dumpty, imparting special significance to words that mean only what he wants them to in a given instance. Swagger - self-conscious self-confidence, bordering on arrogance I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it in my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around, restless, making connections, mixing and matching ideas, rather than marching in a straight line.

That's why I'm always stressing focus. My thoughts chase each other from room to room in my head if I let them, so sometimes I have to slow myself down. I've never been one to write perfect little short stories in my rhymes, like some other MCs.

It's not out of a sense of preference, just that the rhymes come to me in a different way, as a series of connecting verbal ideas, rather than full-fledged stories…. Stories have ups and downs and moments of development followed by moments of climax; the storyteller has to keep it all together, which is an incredible skill. But poetry is all climax, every word and line pops with the same energy as the whole; even the spaces between the words can feel charged with potential energy.

It fits my style to rhyme with high stakes riding on every word and to fill every pause with pressure and possibility. He even freely admits the contradiction of using Decoded to demonstrate a carefully constructed, densely layered lyrical aesthetic as against his free, semi-improvisatory style of "flow" against his use of "ignorant" lyrics, heavy beats, and poppy hooks to "dumb down" otherwise serious works to assure their mass appeal. A lyrical purist like Stephen Sondheim would rip him a new one, however, since Jay-Z's catalog is not only distinctly lacking in exact rhymes and consistent meter, but with the possible exception of "Mental Exercise," fails to develop consistent imagery or build any kind of narrative arc.

Where some might complain of incoherent strings of mixed metaphors, Jay-Z instead asserts the elegance of free association. Hence he can jump from western religion to Hollywood Western to Hollywood Sci-Fi to math puns to material status symbol, as he does at into Volume 3: Life and Times of S. Carter 's "Jigga My Nigga :" See I scrambled with priests, hustle with nuns I got the, mind capacity of a young Butch Cassidy Niggaz get fly, let em defy gravity Fo'-five rapidly lift your chest cavity Streets won't let me chill Always been a clumsy nigga, don't let me spill Muh'fuckers wanna wet me still, I remain y'all more than one, like five divided by four Shit, this just the hate that's been provided by y'all Reciprocated and multiplied by more You likely to see Jigga in a widebody or drop-top Bentley Azure Whew!

You want confidence? We're talking about a guy who scored a megahit by rapping to a song from the musical Annie and lied to obtain the rights. Jay-Z is a man whose stage name puns on the alpha-omega and whose nickname is 'Hova as in Jehova. He can chest-thump with the best of them, and goes so far as to argue that braggadocio is understood as a form of hip-hop literary convention. Braggadocio has become filler content used to show off a unique rhyme structure, sense of humor, or delivery.

Decoded is Jay-Z showing off. Wow, is he ever good at it. Mar 22, Anne rated it it was amazing Shelves: book-club , like-so-much-i-purchased.

This was undoubtedly my favorite book club book ever.