Summary of Decoded

 Jay-Z wrote the book "Decoded" about his life and the Hip-Hop Industry. It was released in 2010.

Born 10 pounds/greatest spitter of sounds/as a kid I fought rounds/of rap battles in the streets/on playgrounds/made my own sounds to rap on/My story ain’t no once upon/a time to tell the greatest tale rags to riches/made it rich but never scrubbed dishes/instead I stood on street corners/never had no owners/From drug dealin/to word wheelin’/this is my faerie tale

Momma bought me a nookbook/I aint no crook/ just a black poet/ I know it’s hard to know it/when I rap about hustlin’ and dealin’ and my friends who be stealin’/Let’s make this clear, those things were never my mission, just a product of my livin’ condition/where everybody be snickin/

I never grew up wishin’/to be on the streets d-dealin’/just telling you my hustler story/swear I ain’t trying to make it out as a glory/what I’ve done is done/my song isn’t going to corrupt your son/You don’t cover up the truth to make it go away/I got some more to say

I use language to represent/all the anger and rage we got pent/from living in poverty my whole life/My daddy don’t even have a wife/left me alone to watch my own/that hurt worse than any stone/but to make matters worse/that same curse afflicted all my friends/No father in the lions dens/

I know mamas don’t like my N-word/they don’t realize I was an A-nerd/Photographic memory as sharp as an arrow/the path I walked is kinda narrow/No room for the dumb/under the music industries thumb/don’t ask me how kayne got here/he’s from some other atmosphere/

My audience ain’t no PC mommas/ it’s the poor in the Bahamas/the poor in Brooklyn/So I use the N-word/and people scream it’s absurd/I’m just telling it like it is/so just sit and listen to me Mizz/censorship doesn’t make it go away/Do you understand me Ok?/if you can’t handle my story/can’t handle when the world gets gory/we gotta fix poverty/That’s the center of my harmony/the projects are scary because the rich made ‘em like that/we band under the gangster hat/for protection from oppression/my art is a confession/of the truth/This ain’t weird Al spoof

I had bigger plans than school/had an Industry to rule/stood on street corners and rapped in my head/Barely talked, people though me brain dead/two choices/The drug dealing road/that can leave a man oh so cold/Or roll in the hip-hop mood/and risk having no food/Didn’t know which path to take/tried to quit but dealing is like charming a snake/if you stop ya get bit/I couldn’t risk a quit/my crew told my rapping was for the fool/my band told me drugs were a death tool/which way to go/I didn’t know

With a ratatat my supplier was dead/Shot through the head/balls in his own mouth/I left before things went south/I knew it was time to stop/time to embrace hip-hop/My homies dragged me to labels/But I got dismissed like a books of fables/So I opened the R.O.C/opened it for Nigz just like me/Local MC’s can see the good things in me/We spent the summer producing an album/I couldn’t fathom that I had just launched the biggest rap label/my CD took off like a cable/car I knew was going to go far

I wanted to stop after the first/but poets have a curse/the words just keep coming/the tunes I’m still humming/The world wanted more/I went on my 2^nd tour/My first was with the MC kane/He knock rhymes out like a bowling ball in lane/before long I launched three records/Reasonable Doubt, The black album, Life and times of Shawn Carter/Now everyone knew who was smarter/Those that rejected me wanted me back/change labels now was totally wack/I was going to be the guy/Just saying my name got folks high/My raps were in demand/even by those without a tan/I had transcended the racial barrier/Flew over like a harrier/Rags to riches/I Never scrubbed dishes

Now everyone knows my name/my success opened a whole new game/National figure/grew out of a quiet clever nigger/I’ve put a president in office/Inspire the youth to be pompous/I might go down in history as the greatest rapper to ever be! My name is Jay-Z

In Remembrance

As we set out on this journey, young and bright,

We did not have a clue of this plight,

What I believe, as many others portray

That we were wiser than we are today.

I never thought it would come to this,

ruining the purity of our bliss,

So innocent, just so fine,

our thirst for wisdom was absurdly divine!

Our quest went sour, our quest went amuck,

once we started using the profane word ____,

It is not cool, it is not right,

so stop, or I'll leave, I just might!

So, my fellow comrades, as I say farewell,

please check your heart as it spouts from your well,

For even as the vulgarity flared,

I remember the great times we've shared.

This is our Decision to Live Fast and Die Young

like really, "live fast and die young" is the way the go.

From the moment we are born, we are constantly approaching death. It sounds grim doesn't it? Not to get too distracted here but...

During my time playing competitive magic I've learned a lot about life. In magic for every strategy their is a counter. People will put cards in their decks in order to beat your deck. In response you can do three things: change decks, counteract their counters, or ignore them and make other elements of your deck stronger. Often times people will fight strategies using ineffective methods, they try to directly fight what they see as the obvious solution. The best solution to most strategies usually involve creative thinking.
End Aside

We are faced with death on every front from the time we are born. Disease, Violence, Natural Disasters, shit hitting a fan (to reference Airplane), the list is endless. I once theorized that every physical object could be used to end life. (Wipe Cream is scary!!!) So when faced with these problems we learn to protect are selves. Death is one deck, we are the other. We see death playing lots of cards that kill us, so in turn we add lots of cards to protect ourselves. In the end we end of with a deck that can never win but instead can only survive. Unforntately death has this one card called "time" that will kill anything that lives for a long time. This directly parallels real life. Death is stronger than any amount of protein shakes, vitamins, workouts, or anti-aging chemicals. While flood insurance will help you rebuild after disasters, death will kill you eventually. You can't beat death.

If i concluded my article here, things would feel very grim, wouldn't they? The good news is that this new knowledge can be used to make you happier (YAY!). Because the risk of death is 100%, every thing that can kill you isn't actaully going to end you life, as you were fated to die anyways.

Risk and reward generally scales in a direct relationship, as as the risk of death of already 100%, their is nothing in this world but rewards. Lets say you enjoy painting, but you could also make a reasonable living computing numbers for some business or another. As a painter you're unlikely to make very much money at all, with a small chance of becoming enormously famous. (Think Banksy, modern day artist who brought street art to the public eye. His paintings sell for a couple hundred thousand. He could piss on a piece of paper and sell the thing for atleast $50,00) As business person who doesn't ever do anything fun except buy new a house, and they realize that life is out to get you, as the bank forecloses it later. The painter is the riskier profession because you likely not be able to make much money, starve and die, but that was already going to happen, eventually as i proved earlier. Let me demonstrate another example, owing a business. This is actually the perfect situation to showcase Risk-Reward relationships. The simple explanation of owning a business is often "All the profits with all the risk". This is exactly what you need to do with you life, I think everyone should try to own a business. We always hear about these crazy success stories like the people who invent Facebook and Google, now millionaires. "But really, is everyone going to be that successful?". No of course not, just make sure to invest everything into making it a success. If your business crashes, you die, but so what?!?! Like it's not that you've lost something you weren't already going to loss anyways. Think Romeo-Juliet type commitment. I'm one hundred percent serious about the dieing part. Think about the possible outcomes:
1. Crazy success, the ability to do whatever else you want to do with your life.
2. Moderate success, that good feeling you get from owning success.
3. Failure and starvation, I hear heaven is actually a really nice place.

None of those are bad!!
So in conclusion, take risks because once the risk of death exceeds 100% you have nothing to loss.
You have nothing to loss from the day your born. Never shoot for a moderate living. Shoot for the ridiculous.

Assumptions and Cookies

A gorgeous beauty sits across the table
Distracting me with it's seductive aroma,
One taste of siren puts you in coma
Every time the pleasure is intoxicating
So to sit here watching
Is tantalizing

Later that night
I am fit to begin the fight
As I see it's unclothed form
Soon that desire storm
of licks and lookie
Is unleashed as I picks
Up the cookie
and Plop

That lovely flop
into my mouth

Why we don't Encourage Speaking

Thinking liberally in Kansas has taught me some things.
Convincing my mother that not all liberal ideas are good has taught me some things.
Defending an unpopular topic in a room full of fierce opposition is just about my favorite thing to do.
Today’s topic is about the nature of our opposition to swear words, and how in reality labeling these words as such causes greater ills than goods.
    When I was about ten maybe eleventh years old, I went to my first Friday Night Magic (FNM), a party for Magic: The Gathering players, in essence. This is the place where all the nerd gamers from high school hang out, now adults; but still act like children, playing a card game. Yes FNM is a beautiful thing, a room full of kids using adult language and their cunning mind working at strategy games, in order to throw hundreds of dollars down the toilet. In our ranks was the worst mouth of all, an ex-marine gone strategist, running the show with his creative use of the term “Mother Fucker”, had the ability to just insert it in any phrase he pleased and got away with it. Nobody raised concern; everyone had a good time at these FNM.
    There was alway the brave trouble makers at school, slipping the word “bitch” into their conversation and their dramatic exiting speech whenever they got kicked out of class. These folks got a lot of attention because they showed the free-spirited youthful rebellion as they uttered those forbidden words. As teenagers we all feel that sense of rebelliousness, those that expressed it got socially rewarded. A phenomenon spread through each grade, one by one, year after year. Something about the freedom gained at the age of 13 changed people. They ripped their jeans, jammed to Rock, Rap, and Sexual Pop music on the bus, because up until that point Ipods were banned on school bus.
    And now, as I go to freshmen school I hear these words as free as if these ancient codes that forbid these words are now lifted. All of these events have made me realize that there is no evil menace in these words; the menace itself comes from our elder’s suppression of such words.
    A words meaning is only the way you use it. We have two sections of negative words, soft words and then swear words. If I tell you “YOU ARE LAME” when you’re having a bad day, in a very mean and loud manner, what is the difference between that and softly uttering, “You’re really bitchy today”. I for one would be more hurt by some one seriously screaming phrase one into my ear, with the entire serious and ill wish that is generally associated with yelling “Bitch” across the room. So when I joking use a swear word, or joking use the word Buttface, only one of those gets a stern look from my teacher. Words’ meaning is entirely dependent on the presentation of that word. Interpretations the spoken phrase are affected by intent the same way.
    Within the bible it says something about the fouls of the use of an ill tongue. This is generally accepted to mean that is it good for your soul’s integrity if you don’t use swear words. However this verse can be applied to any mean phrase or comment, such as the commonly used like; “You’re silly, you’re dumb”, Weakling, slow, retarded, etc. We all know these to be most often used in a joking manner. We also use swear words in the joking manner. So to use this biblical phrase to ban the use of any swear word, no matter the context, it is to ban the use of any negative term. An absolute resolve against foul language is needed to keep a clean soul. I feel logic like this falls clearly into the pot of narrow and strict interpretations of language that is destructive and impedes progress.
    Labeling some words as illegal violates our write to express ourselves, legally. The suppression of thoughts and ideas, simply because of a trivial “banned” list is destructive to society. We need to be able to feel that we can speak freely regardless of the language used. Banning these words in general society cause the youth to actively want to use them, out of the naturally feeling of rebellion that comes about during the age of mental development. When we are told we can’t do something, psychology proves that we want to do it even more. Little kids want to ride the 46” restricted roller coasters, even though it clearly is not happening.
    Often times rappers get a lot of slam for putting dirty language in our childrens hearts and minds. Rap, as all art forms do, express the artists feelings. On the harsh street of urban housing projects, they speak like that. So to censor the words that they use to express themselves inaccurately portrays the harsh hood life. Instead of complaining about “Bitch & Hoe” content, we need to working to Improve the life of the poor.
    Shit Shit Shit…..