Jay-Z Said His First Rhymes Were ‘Pretty Prophetic’
Jay-Z said his first rhymes demonstrated his confidence in his abilities, even years before fame seemed a possibility for him. He wrote obsessively, even composing in his head when he didn’t have paper on hand. He said he began writing before he turned ten and considers his early writing rather prescient.
Jay-Z considered his first rhymes ‘prophetic’
Jay-Z began writing as a child, but he said his rhymes were more advanced than his young age might suggest.
“[M]y first rhymes were pretty much, you know, very boastful and, you know, academic,” he told NPR in 2010. “But they were kind of advanced for a young kid.”
He shared what he remembered of one early rhyme.
“Like I put a piece of one of them, and it was like: I’m the king of hip-hop that renewed like the Reebok. The key in the lock with words so provocative, as long as I live,” he recalled. “And I look back on that rhyme now, and I’m like man, that’s pretty prophetic.”
It was surprisingly farsighted. He signed with Reebok in 2002 to launch a line of footwear. It led to a period of success for the company.
He said he became obsessed with writing
Jay-Z said that once he began writing, he found it difficult to stop.
“I would sit at my table for hours and hours until my mother made me go to bed,” he said. “And it was like this — this obsession with words and with writing. And as I got further away from that notebook — now as I was on the street, and these ideas would come, I would run into the corner store, The Bodega, and grab like, a paper bag or just buy a juice, anything just to get a paper bag.”
He’d copy his writing in his notebook when he returned home.
“And then I’d write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back,” he said. “And then I would transfer them into the notebook.”
Jay-Z shared how he memorizes his rhymes
Eventually, though, Jay-Z spent so much time away from his notebook that he learned to memorize the lines.
“And as I got further and further away from home and from the notebook, I had to memorize these rhymes longer and longer and longer — and like, with any exercise, you know, once you train your brain to do that, it becomes a natural occurrence.”
Eventually, he reached a point where he no longer needed to write anything down. He memorizes his songs and records them without putting them to paper.
“So you know, about the time I got to record my first album — which was, I was 26 — I didn’t need pen to paper,” he said. “My memory had been trained, you know, just to listen to a song, think of the words, and then just lay them to tape.”
