Jay-Z Refused to Read or Release His Completed Autobiography
Jay-Z released his autobiography, Decoded, in 2010. Five years before this, he’d completed his autobiography, but he said he didn’t want to release it. He shared why, despite working with another writer and completing the book, he no longer felt prepared to share it with the public.
Jay-Z didn’t want to release his autobiography
In the early 2000s, Jay-Z worked with writer and filmmaker dream hampton on his autobiography, The Black Book. When he received the completed manuscript from his co-author, though, he realized he wasn’t ready to share it with the world.
“I know that people really want to know about me, and I thought I was OK with it, but as it got closer and closer, I said, ‘What am I doing?’ And then when I really got [the manuscript], I was like [pantomimes fainting],” he told Rolling Stone in 2005. “Just someone having your life in their hands made me like, ‘I ain’t doin’ this s***.’”
He said he didn’t even want to read the book.
“I can’t read it, by the way,” he said. “She was sending me chapters, but I haven’t read it all together like one thing. I can’t.”
Jay-Z later released an autobiography
In 2010, however, Jay-Z released his autobiography Decoded. He also worked with hampton on the book.
“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,” wrote his publisher, Penguin Random House.
He has spoken about wanting to keep his personal life private
According to some literary critics, Jay-Z’s memoir still didn’t provide too much insight into his personal life. Some have said that this adds to his level of mystique.
“He’s a black Fonzie figure,” Questlove once said. “Those mythical rebellious, cool characters are the ones that everyone’s interested in the most, because everyone wants to peel the layers off them to see what makes them tick.”
He once said that he likes keeping some elements of his life to himself. This includes his relationship with Beyoncé.
“I just think it’s really a part of your life that you gotta keep to yourself … You have to, or you’ll go insane in this type of business,” he told Vibe Magazine shortly after their marriage (via Yahoo!). “You have to have something that’s sacred to you and the people around you … I shared so much of my life, my childhood, and my family, the death of my nephew with the world. I should have something to hold on to. You need something for your sanity to say, ‘Okay, I could chill out, and this is it.'”
His wife agrees with the sentiment. She rarely speaks about their relationship either.
“I don’t actually talk about who I’m dating, who I’m not, because I think it’s important that I concentrate on the music and when you start talking about those things, then that becomes bigger than the art,” she said on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003.
