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Zusatztext “Compelling . . . provocative! evocative . . . Part autobiography! part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work! Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth! while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.” —Michiko Kakutani! The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.” — The New Yorker “Elegantly designed! incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.” — Los Angeles Times “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing! it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.” — The Boston Globe “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.” — Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt! passionate and slick.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Informationen zum Autor Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is one of the most successful hip-hop artists and entrepreneurs of all time. Klappentext 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. Praise for Decoded "Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author's own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own."-The New Yorker "Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps."-Los Angeles Times "A riveting exploration of Jay-Z's journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism."-The Boston Globe "Shawn Carter's most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating."-Entertainment Weekly "Hip-hop's renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Leseprobe I saw the circle before I saw the kid in the middle. I was nine years old, the summer of 1978, and Marcy was my world. The shadowy bench-lined inner pathways that connected the twenty-seven six-story buildings of Marcy Houses were like tunnels we kids burrowed through. Housing projects can seem like labyrinths to outsiders, as complicated and intimidating as a Moroccan bazaar. But we knew our way around. Marcy sat on top of the G train, which connects Brooklyn to Queens, but not to the city. For Marcy kids, Manhattan is where your parents went to work, if they were lucky, and where we’d yellow-bus it with our elementary class on special trips. I’m from New York, but I didn’t know that at nine. The street signs for Flushing, Marcy, Nostrand, and Myrtle avenues seemed like metal flags to me: Bed-Stuy was my country, Brooklyn my planet. When I got a little older Marcy would show me its menace, but for a kid in the seventies, it was mostly an adventure, full of concrete corners to turn, dark hallways to explore, and everywhere other kids. When you jumped the fences to play football on the grassy patches that passed for a park, you might find the field studded with glass shards that caught the light like diamonds and would pierce your sneakers just as fast. Turning one of those concrete corners you might bump into your older brother clutching dollar b...
