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The hustler

Independent, The (London), Apr 12, 2008 by TIM WALKER

JAY-Z

The Saturday Profile

Kanye might have the charisma; Fiddy might have the bullet wounds, and Diddy might have the overpriced perfume with his name all over it. But the rapper with the $150m deal is Jay-Z.

While the UK music press argues about his place on the Glastonbury line-up, Jay-Z can relax and count his blessings. Last week, he became the first hip-hop artist to sign a "360-degree" deal with concert promoters Live Nation, giving them a stake in all his myriad enterprises, and adding considerably to his personal fortune, already estimated at more than half a billion dollars.

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The sum of $150m is more substantial than the price tag the promoter placed on Madonna ($120m) or U2 (a rumoured $100m-plus), and will see Live Nation funding not only Jay-Z's live performances, but also his next three albums to the tune of $10m each. The company will even pump $25m into his other business ventures, including clothing lines and a talent-spotting agency.

According to reports, Jay-Z also took time off last weekend to marry Beyonce Knowles. Yet somehow even a relationship conducted under the noses of the hungry US tabloids has failed to dent his critical standing. After more than a decade of remarkable commercial success, Jay-Z remains beloved of hardcore hip-hop fans and mere hobbyists alike.

"He's the greatest rapper alive," says Trevor Nelson, the hip- hop DJ and presenter. "The most credible rappers, like Common, never tend to be multi-platinum artists. The most commercial rappers, like 50 Cent, never get into the hall of fame for their skills. But Jay- Z has both, and that's what makes him great."

Jay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter in Brooklyn in 1969. His mother Gloria recalls her son's birth on a recording made for "December 4th", a track from 2003's The Black Album: "Sean Carter was born December 4th/ weighing in at 10 pounds eight ounces/ He was the last of my four children/ The only one who didn't give me any pain when I gave birth to him/ and that's how I knew he was a special child."

Carter grew up in the Marcy Houses project in Bedford- Stuyvesant, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, close to the subway station on Marcy Avenue where the J and Z trains both stop. Marcy Houses' 4,000-plus residents are squeezed into 1,700 apartments in 27 six-storey buildings; the housing project was built in 1949, and by the time of Carter's birth it was one of the city's roughest neighbourhoods.

Carter's father left home when he was 12 years old, and he was raised by his mother, to whom he remains very close. She recalls on "December 4th" that the young Shawn would keep his three elder siblings awake at night, drumming the kitchen table and rapping. Eventually, she bought him a boom-box for his birthday, and he began making his own rhymes. Such are his self-taught skills that Jay-Z supposedly never writes his lyrics down on paper, and The Blueprint, one of his most critically and commercially popular albums, was written in just two days.

Carter shared a schoolyard in downtown Brooklyn with fellow rappers Busta Rhymes and Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., but failed to graduate after becoming involved in the drugs trade as a small-time dealer. He claims to have witnessed his first murder aged nine. But for Carter, then known as "Jazzy" (which later morphed into his current moniker), greater things beckoned. The street life was ripe material for the musical career on which he was about to embark.

In 1996, Carter and his friends Kareem Burke and Damon Dash (now a hip-hop mogul in his own right) set up an independent label, Roc- a-Fella records, to release Jay-Z's classic first album Reasonable Doubt, a DIY ethic that continues to inspire young urban artists today.

Just three months after Reasonable Doubt's release, however, hip- hop's violent reputation worsened with the murder of rap superstar Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. In 1997 Wallace suffered the same fate in an alleged revenge killing. "Jay-Z is the surviving great from that generation," says Nelson. "The legacy of hip-hop is tarnished by the deaths of Tupac and Biggie. But Jay-Z swam through that controversy, and when hip-hop emerged as a viable genre that was here to stay, I think he kept it alive, almost single-handedly."

Following Wallace's death, Jay-Z and fellow rapper Nas grappled with one another for the crown of New York's hip-hop king, in one of the genre's most famous "beefs". The conflict was played out in the lyrics to some of the rivals' most successful albums, including Jay- Z's The Blueprint, from 2001. When the dust settled on the battlefield, with neither the clear victor, both their careers were in rude health. Jay-Z had made his name with a signature combination of skilful, telling rhymes and glossy, radio-friendly beats and samples.

In 2003, Jay-Z announced his retirement from making studio LPs with The Black Album. Despite his continuing success, he said, he wanted to focus on his business interests. Early in his career, he had recognised the commercial influence he wielded beyond the record store. Roc-A-Fella records had branched out into clothing to create the Rocawear brand, which he would then namedrop shamelessly in his lyrics. Last year, he sold the label for 108.5m. He owns stakes in a basketball team, a vodka brand, and chains of hotels and bars. In 2004, he began a three-year stint as president of the hip-hop label Def Jam, which had invested heavily in Roc-A-Fella during the 1990s.

The hustler

Independent, The (London), Apr 12, 2008 by TIM WALKER

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