Decoded (18 page)

W
hen I was a kid my family loved sports. I played baseball with a Little League squad out in Brooklyn. My big brother Eric played basketball in junior and summer leagues and was a straight star. When we first moved to Marcy my father set up a little basketball hoop in our apartment—and we would all sweat it out right there in the living room like it was Madison Square Garden.

But we never could fully dedicate ourselves to becoming true athletes. Life intervened. I hit the streets. But I still loved sports. Playing them, watching them. I wasn’t one of those cats who was too cool to lose his shit over a game. I cared.

There’s always been a connection between sports and the streets. When Biggie rapped in “Things Done Changed” that
either you slangin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot,
he was talking about the two paths out that most young black men think are open to them. The irony is that if you’re “slangin’ crack rock” you’ll probably end up in jail, and if you got a “wicked jump shot,” you still won’t make it to the NBA unless you’re extremely lucky, like win-the-lottery lucky.

But even if dreams of the NBA are one of the hoaxes played on young black boys, I also believe that there’s a lot to be learned from elite athletes. Sports are one of the great metaphors for life, and watching athletes perform is like watching different ideas about life playing themselves out. Athletes aren’t just fascinating for their physical skills, but for what their performances tell us about human potential and character.

I AM THE MIKE JORDAN OF RECORDING

I know I’m not alone when I say this, but I absolutely love Michael Jordan. Kobe is impressive for his dedication to the game, and has an outside chance to eclipse Jordan someday, and I think LeBron is the best of his generation, but as of now Jordan’s inarguably the greatest player to ever touch a basketball. What made his game magical is the way it spoke to deeper shit than just wins and losses. His career was a perfectly composed story about will. To see him come out of retirement, after his father was buried, to come back and win championships, there was nothing better in the world. In 1998, when the Bulls were down by three in Game Six of the Finals with seconds left, and Jordan scored, stole the ball from Karl Malone, came down, crossed over Bryon Russell, and hit the winning shot at the buzzer—well, I could have laid down and died after that game. It was perfect.

The first time I met Jordan was at St. John’s University, where he was giving the keynote address at their graduation one year. We talked briefly, but didn’t really chop it up. A couple of months later, in Chicago, I went to his restaurant at his invitation to have dinner with him. I had Ty-Ty and my friend Juan with me and I told Jordan that if I was going to sit and break bread with him, I’d have to be able to ask him anything. I meant anything.

It was so perfect that I had Juan with me because he’s a die-hard Knicks fan, and as much as he respected Jordan, he hated the way Jordan personally sat the Knicks down every year in the Eastern Conference play offs. Juan is a real sports fan; he’d be sick for a week, I’m talking depressed—he wouldn’t leave the house—after his team lost. That night he had to sit there and dine with his nemesis. Jordan told Juan the story of how he almost came to the Knicks. He said he was a second away from closing the deal, he was packing his bags to come to New York, when Jerry Krauss called and matched the Knicks’ offer at the last minute. Juan looked like he was going to cry.

I asked Jordan who was the hardest nigga that ever guarded him; he told me Joe Dumars. I found out how much Jordan loves Hakeem Olajuwon; he pointed out that he was a leader in steals, which is rare in the center position. I asked him to name his five favorite centers, the best games he ever played, which championship meant the most to him. I got to be an unabashed fan. It was an absolute dream conversation for me.

The thing that distinguished Jordan wasn’t just his talent, but his discipline, his laser-like commitment to excellence. That’s something I always respect, especially in people who have great natural talents already. Making music requires a lot of that same discipline and commitment. It’s true that I’m able to sometimes come up with songs in a matter of minutes after hearing a track, but that’s a skill that I’ve honed over hundreds of hours of practice and work since I was nine. My earliest mentors in rap taught me that making music is work, whether it was Jaz locking himself in a room working on different flows or Big Daddy Kane taking the time to meticulously put together a stage show. There’s unquestionably magic involved in great music, songwriting, and performances—like those nights when a star athlete is totally in the zone and can’t miss. But there’s also work. Without the work, the magic won’t come. There are a hundred Harold Miners (no disrespect) for every Michael Jordan.

I WORK GODDAMN HARD

For instance, tours are the most lucrative aspect of a recording artist’s career; you have a lot more control and fewer people are in your pockets as compared to album sales. It can also be stressful beyond belief. Every night you’re in a different city, every crowd brings a different vibe, every show is subtly different—but at the same time, you have to hit the same marks night after night, find a new way to get your own energy up when you’re performing the same song you did the night before. It becomes less about your innate charisma and talent—although that’s still required—and more about being able to meet the mental and physical challenge of it. A tour requires stamina, willpower, and the ability to self-motivate, to hype yourself into game mode night after night. When you’re on tours like the ones I’ve done over the last decade, you’re like a professional athlete, except that night after night you’re the only one with the bat.

When it comes to signing up new talent, that’s what I’m looking for—not just someone who has skill, but someone built for this life. Someone who has the work ethic, the drive. The gift that Jordan had wasn’t just that he was willing to do the work, but he loved doing it, because he could feel himself getting stronger, ready for anything. He left the game and came back and worked just as hard as he did when he started. He came into the game as Rookie of the Year, and he finished off the last playoff game of his career with a shot that won the Bulls their sixth championship.

That’s the kind of consistency that you can get only by adding deadserious discipline to whatever talent you have.

[
talking
] / So I had to memorize these rhymes until I got home / Ya understand? Once you memorize a sentence /
It’s like an exercise
¹
/ [
echoes
]
/
[
heavy breathing
]
/
[
talking
]
/
Ya niggas can’t be serious right now / I’m the all time heavy weight champion of flows / I’m leading the league in at least six statistical categories right now / Best flow, Most consistent, Realest stories / Most charisma, I set the most trends / And my interviews are hotter / Holla / I jog in the graveyard / Spar in the same ring / Now it’s housed by the building /
Where Malcolm X was slain
²
/
I
spring train in the winter
³
/ Round early December / Run suicide drills over and over / With the weight of the world on my shoulder /
That’s why they call me “Hova”
⁴
/ I’m far from being God / But I work goddamn hard / I wake up with the birds when the nerds are asleep / I’m catching my second wind the second the first one end / I am focused man / And I’m not afraid of death / And I’m going all out / I circle the vultures in a van and / I run the block (run) / Pull up in a drop (pull up) /
Push up on my money (push up)
⁵
/ I’m in great shape dunny / I keep jacks jumping thirty-six sets / Like a personal trainer
I teach coke to stretch
⁶
/ I pump in Rock sweats / All white trainers / The ghettoes, Billy Blanks / I show you niggas what pain is / Maintain your stamina / Hov will damage ya / Spot you two rhymes y’all niggas is amateurs / The fifth / A dead lift if / Niggas don’t want to get shot then y’all niggas better squat / I drop your set for rep / No need to hit the showers /
The spit from the fifth leave you wet
⁷
/ Lyrical exercise / [
hard breathing
] / Y’all niggas ain’t tired right? / One, One / Two, Two / Three, Three / Four, Breathe Easy / Suckers / Get your weight up / Not your hate up / Jigga man is diesel /
When I lift the eight up
⁸
/ Y’all ain’t ready to workout with the boy / Your flow is brain on drugs / Mines is rap on steroids / I lift every voice when I sing / My ability / Make yours look like an exercise in futility / Bring your squad / Biceps, Triceps, and Quads / We don’t struggle with undeveloped muscle / Y’all ain’t real / That’s y’all Achilles’ heel / Same routine when you see me you know the drill / I spot ya / I lift the weight of the watch off your arm / Remain nice and calm / Put down your things /
Trinidad of the game know my way around your ring
⁹
/ No matter how many pounds you bring / It sounds like the same old thing / R-O-C is the strongest team

[
Intro: Notorious B.I.G. interview
]
/
I’m just, tryin to stay above water y’know / Just stay busy, stay workin / Puff told me like, the key to this joint / The key to staying, on top of things / is treat everything like it’s your first project, knahmsayin? / Like it’s your first day like back when you was an intern / Like, that’s how you try to treat things like, just stay hungry / [
Jay-Z
] Uhh, uhh, yes, yes / Y’all wanna know, why he don’t stop / Y’all wanna know, why he don’t flop / Let me tell you pe-eople why / Came from the bottom of the block I / When I was born, it was sworn, I was never gon’ be shit / Had to pull the opposite out this bitch / Had to get my ri-ide on / Eyes on the prize, Shawn knew I had to / Had to had
to get these chips
/
Had to make moves like Olajuwon
¹
/ Started out sellin dimes and nicks / Graduated to a brick / No exaggeration, my infatuation with the strip / Legendary like a schoolboy /
Crushin merely nearly every every
²
chick / Heavy shit—that’s how schoolboy got whipped / And got left on some
“Just Me, Myself and I”
³
/ On some Trugoy shit / Had to move to a place, a place of no return /
Had to play with fire and get burned
/
Only way the boy ever gon’ learn
⁴
/ Had to lay way in the cut, till I finally got my turn / Now I’m on top in the spot that I earned / It’s my life—it’s my pain and my struggle / The song that I sing to you it’s my ev-ery-thing / Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first / And my thirst is the same as when I came / It’s my joy and my tears and the laughter it brings to me / It’s my ev-ery-thing / Like I never rode in a limo / Like I just dropped flows to a demo / Like it’s ninety-two again and / And I got O’s in the rental / Back in the Stu’ again, no problemo livin was a whole lot simpler / When you think back, you thought that / you would never make it this far, then you / take advantage of the luck you handed / Or the talent you been given /
Ain’t no half-steppin,
⁵
ain’t no, no slippin / Ain’t no different from a block that’s hittin’ / Gotta get it while the getting’s good /
Gotta strike while the iron’s hot, ’fore you stop
⁶
/ Then you gotta bid it good riddance / Goodbye, this is my second major breakup / My first was with a pager / With a hooptie, a cookpot, and the GAME / This one’s with the studio, with the stage, with the fortune /
Maybe not the fortune, but certainly the FAME
⁷