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This cocky criminal boasts about possessing numerous firearms (“Come and Get Me”), carrying guns to the Grammys (“So Ghetto”) and being “so confrontational, they shoulda never let me go on probation” (“NYMP”). Violence invades many other cuts with statements such as, “I got the mind capacity of a young Butch Cassidy,” “[I] keep a full clip I have to empty out on n—ers” and “I bury n—ers six feet deep.” Proud of his obscene lyrics, Jay-Z crows, “Radio’s gotta play me though I cuss too much” (“So Ghetto”). True to his gangsta roots, he refers to woman as “b–ches” and whores amid a flurry of crass sexual references. “Snoopy Track” says, “I got a main chick, a mistress and a young b–ch.” On “S. Carter,” a female voice claims, “I love rough sex.” There’s marital infidelity (“Watch Me”), sex with multiple partners (“Do It Again”) and an approving nod to “chicks that get dough for takin’ off their clothes/All them money-makin’ honeys that slide down the poles” (“Snoopy Track”). A half-dozen raps glamorize illegal drugs and alcohol, from smoking marijuana, to “pushin’ powder,” to driving while intoxicated.
According to The Source, no one dominated rap music in 1999 like Jay-Z. As for the artist’s rap sheet, he was recently charged with felony assault for stabbing a record exec in a nightclub. His lawyer insists he’s “as gentle as can be.” Jay-Z’s music–with its arrogant swagger, lack of self-control and unbridled brutality–suggests otherwise.
