美国国家公共电台 NPR JAY-Z Bares His Soul On '4:44'

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Jay-Z, the hip-hop goliath, has had a productive summer so far. His collaboration 1 with Beyonce yielded two releases - their twins. And just this morning, he released a new solo album called "4:44" - you know, like the time, four hours, 44 minutes. Now, with the release of this new album, a lot of people are wondering where Jay-Z might be taking hip-hop next. And so we asked NPR Music's hip-hop writer Rodney Carmichael to join us. Hey, Rodney.

RODNEY CARMICHAEL, BYLINE 2: Hey, how are y'all doing?

GREENE: I'm good. So before we get to the backstory of this album, I think we should play some music. That's the best way to do this. So what are we going to listen to?

CARMICHAEL: This is "Kill Jay-Z" in which he starts the album out by slaying 3 his own ego 4, basically. It's a really good place to begin.

GREENE: Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KILL JAY Z")

JAY-Z: (Rapping) Kill Jay-Z. They'll never love you. You'll never be enough. Let's just keep it real, Jay-Z. [Expletive] Jay-Z. I mean, you shot your own brother. How can we know if we can trust Jay-Z? And you know better. I know you do. But you got to do better. Boy, you owe it to Blue.

GREENE: Slaying his own ego. Why would Jay-Z be doing that?

CARMICHAEL: Well, I think he's trying to set us up to take us in a slightly different place than where Jay-Z tends to go on his albums, which is a much more personal place and a much more vulnerable space for him. He reveals a lot of himself, and, you know, that hasn't always necessarily been his forte 5 on the mic.

GREENE: Well, do you like the music? Do you like the album?

CARMICHAEL: I love it. This album is incredible. This is already my favorite Jay-Z album. It might be his best. It's definitely his best in recent years.

GREENE: I can hear people dying to listen to it all weekend after hearing you say that. Well, let's talk about his journey. I mean, in the '90s, a lot of people said Jay was, you know, taking hip-hop in this totally new direction. He's approaching 50 years old now. Is he still considered, you know, sort of a trailblazer or not?

CARMICHAEL: Well, he's been a trailblazer on the industry side. He's been a businessman, an entrepreneur, you know, as he likes to point out time and time again. But I think with this album he is pioneering a mature hip-hop movement. I think that he is - he's leading hip-hop into a new direction. This genre 6 that has been, you know, a young genre for all of these years, he's really opening the gateway 7 to show - to show people how the genre can age gracefully 8.

GREENE: Hip-hop fans can age along with him, in a way.

CARMICHAEL: Exactly.

GREENE: Let me ask you - so in hip-hop, there's this thing when an artist gets called out by another artist, they might respond in a song. This is a little different with Jay-Z and his wife Beyonce because Beyonce made a song about infidelity in her big album "Lemonade." And I want to listen to a little bit of the title track "4:44" from Jay-Z here.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "4:44")

JAY-Z: (Rapping) I apologize, often womanize. Took for my child to be born to see through a woman's eyes. Took for these natural twins to believe in miracles. Took me too long for this song. I don't deserve you.

GREENE: They keep their relationship so private, but here it's sort of spilling out into their music.

CARMICHAEL: Well, that's where they've always left it, actually. And this is the track that everybody has been waiting on since - since Beyonce's album came out. This is the response to it, basically. It's an apologetic track. And it's not - he's not just apologizing to Beyonce. He's apologizing to women in general, women that he may have wronged in the past. He says that the birth of his first daughter was really an awakening 9 for him to be able to see, you know, through a woman's eyes, so to speak. And he really goes there with this album. It's really deep.

GREENE: Talking about Jay-Z's new album with NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael. Rodney, thanks so much.

CARMICHAEL: Thank you.