JAY-Z Read online

  Can’t lie, at the time it never bothered me

  At the bar, gettin’ my thug on properly

  My squad and me, lack of respect for authority

  Laughin’ hard, happy to be escapin’ poverty, however brief.

  The “however brief” coda underscores just how notions of the precarious and the sporadic gang up to deliver a blow both to the dealer and to those to whom the drugs are dealt. Jay was a once and future retailer of the first order, first in selling crack, and next in telling the story of what he and so many others felt they were compelled by circumstance to do. Not to glamorize blight hustling, but to explicitly discourage its expression by artistically exploring its dangers and seductions and its lethal consequences. In this case, it’s better to tell, not show, which is a way to diminish harm by speaking of it rather than doing it. Jay efficiently captures this idea in his 2001 song “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” where he substitutes the selling of drugs with telling us about his having sold drugs while warning his listeners not to do it. We witness him go from street entrepreneur to grassroots ethnographer, from blight hustler to bright hustler.

  Hov is back, life stories told through rap

  Niggas acting like I sold you crack

  Like I told you sell drugs, no, Hov did that

  So hopefully you won’t have to go through that.

  Perhaps the biggest benefit of reading McDougall and listening to JAY-Z in tandem is the language they give us to battle the mammoth badness of one of the greatest hucksters, swindlers, and debilitating liars the country has known. A man who, since his election in 2016, has let flow a stream of moral obscenity and spiritual belligerence that has polluted the wells of our democracy. The heinous hustler has unleashed fearsome waves of fascism in nearly uninterrupted spasms of political insanity.

  It is not he alone who is at fault. It is not just his solipsistic worldview and isolationist politics that threaten us. It is the maddening complicity of men and women who know better. They compound their sin through defiant amnesia. They try to make us forget that they deemed the forty-fourth occupant of the Oval Office a Black Monster. An irrevocable noncitizen. An irreversible alien. An indisputable nonhuman who ruined this country because he was unforgivably black. Meanwhile, the white shivering class—those who are politically and morally spooked by “otherness”—has been badly hoodwinked. In the bargain basement of retail politics they got hustled into believing the most self-aggrandizing blowhard in American political history was the right man for the job. McDougall says that in Herman Melville’s arguably greatest novel, The Confidence-Man,

  Melville took the risk of telling the truth, as he saw it, about the tricks Americans played on themselves in their effort to worship both God and Mammon. His Confidence-Man, variously likened to a jester, traveling salesman, “genial misanthrope,” P.T. Barnum (who published his scandalous autobiography in 1855), the Devil, an angel, and the Second Coming of Christ, is a master of disguise and persuasion. Though some passengers [aboard a Mississippi steamboat that is the setting for the novel] prove tougher to gull than others, he eventually employs their own fear, greed, or fancied virtue to pry open their wallets, exposing in the process every conundrum and lie—about slavery, Indians, business, industry, and frontier religion—Americans preferred not to acknowledge.

  America’s Heartless Hustler has surely turned the suspicion of the myriad “others” in our culture to his crooked advantage. He has lied about himself to inflate his importance and lied about others to diminish theirs. His cruelly multiplied mendacities have choked trust and stoked fear. He repeatedly claims in stark delusion to be one of our greatest truth tellers. He has pried open the purse strings of his blinkered adherents and separated them from their votes. As McDougall says of Melville’s character, the “Con-Man does not persecute them so much as assist their self-flagellation: he is accuser, prosecutor, judge, bailiff, and even redeemer insofar as the dupes can blame their misfortune on the Con-Man’s bad faith. Can no one resist? Are none sufficiently holy or cynical to escape the urge to prove they are what they’re not?”

  Not to be outdone by a fraudulent miscarriage of bright hustling, Jay told David Letterman in 2018 that Donald Trump is “actually a great thing” because he is “forcing people to … have a conversation and band together and work together.” Jay argued that one “can’t really address something that’s not revealed,” and that Trump “is bringing out an ugly side of America that we wanted to believe was gone … We still gotta deal with it. We have to have tough conversations—talk about the N-word, talk about why white men are so privileged in this country.”

  Trump’s bristling contempt for blackness and people of color around the world spilled over as he targeted Haiti, El Salvador, and several African countries, asking in a meeting with senators in January 2018, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” JAY-Z cleverly responded to Trump’s bile on CNN later that month.

  It’s disappointing and hurtful … But this has been going on. This is how people talk behind closed doors … Because once you [drive racists into hiding], all the other closet racists just run back into the hole. You haven’t fixed anything. What you’ve done is spray perfume on a trash can. And when you do that … you create a superbug, because you don’t take care of the problem. You don’t take the trash out, you just keep spraying whatever over it to make it acceptable. And then as those things grow, you create a superbug. And now we have Donald Trump, the superbug.

  That’s a bright hustler speaking to a bigoted one.

  No matter what we think of JAY-Z’s magnificent obsession with hustling, there is little doubt that he has willed himself, by dint of his talent, to change from a man who sowed mayhem in his urban community to a man who gives nobler meaning to hustling. For him hustling is inspired by loving your own, rescuing and sticking up for the poor members of the hood he no longer has to live in. It means grappling with the vicious forces of white supremacy and black self-destruction. Hopefully the true hustler’s microphone will amplify love long after the tragic trickster has been forced from the limelight and has climbed down for the last time from his bully pulpit.

  * * *

  In a fashion, hustle play in basketball—diving after loose balls, working hard to win—mirrors hustling in the broader culture: it’s valued off the box score, is important to the game, and can gain you extra possessions. There are few professional players who have hustled harder than LeBron James. He is not only a player of extraordinary athletic ability, but, above all, a basketball savant with a genius intelligence quotient who plays the game from the neck up and not merely from the shoulders down. He has risen from dire economic circumstances in a hardscrabble existence in Ohio to become a world-class athlete, parlaying his talent on the court to ingenious business moves off the court. He also uses his financial independence in the fight for black freedom, whether by openly addressing persistent racism or speaking bluntly about the bigotry of many white Americans.

  It is a splendid fate that JAY-Z and LeBron teamed up for several charitable dinners in the mid- to late 2000s during the annual NBA All-Star weekend under the banner of “Two Kings,” well after LeBron had begun to see Jay as a mentor. Their royal pairing showed the synergy of two cultural juggernauts who amplify the vitality of music and games the world over. That two figures who have gone from being seen as occasional pariahs—one as an iconic rapper who nevertheless courted suspicion because of a drug-dealing past, the other as a superstar athlete who has shaken up the league by defying convention and precedent—to being viewed as indispensable participants in song and sports is a tribute to the culture that produced them and gave them the chutzpah to believe they could do it at all. JAY-Z and LeBron have approached the art of the boardroom deal and the management of image and brand with as much panache as they have shown on stage and court.

  For JAY-Z that includes venturing into a clothing line, footwear, a cologne, an entertainment club, alcohol brands, a record label, an enterta
inment company that includes artist and athlete management as well as a television and film division, and a music streaming service. For LeBron that includes an endorsement portfolio with major national sports, beverage, food, and automotive brands; a production company; a media company; a stake in a British soccer team; the LeBron James Family Foundation; and his enormously successful I Promise School in Akron, Ohio. Much of this grew from his partnership with a longtime friend, businessman and media personality Maverick Carter.

  The urge to secure their bases with trusted figures may explain why JAY-Z keeps friends from his childhood and blight hustling days in a close circle and why LeBron brings along folk from his past, like Carter, and provides them with opportunities to shine and explore their talent in ways they’d never otherwise enjoy. Soon after his first championship run with the Miami Heat, LeBron left agent Leon Rose and entrusted his basketball future to another longtime friend, Rich Paul. LeBron, like his mentor JAY-Z, was sending a signal that black intelligence should be supported just as black loyalty should be rewarded. Those gestures are every bit as political as LeBron and his mates in 2012 tweeting out a picture of themselves garbed in hoodies in solidarity with the murdered youth Trayvon Martin.

  Hip hop and sports stars inspire each other because both have often overcome odds through hard work and talent. Their common efforts to achieve reflect both the heart of the American Dream and the core of hustling in the eyes of Melville. Of course, legendary coach and infamous curmudgeon Phil Jackson may have had a racially troubled view of hustling in mind, one that reinforces the perception of bright hustling ruffling the feathers of the white establishment, when he denigrated and demoted LeBron’s business partners by referring to them as his “posse.”

  Jay and LeBron have both used their cultural capital to enliven our definition of hustling by broadening their base and extending their influence and visibility—and their power. For instance, JAY-Z and his wife were greeted as royalty by a fawning citizenry at President Obama’s second inauguration, and a week later, LeBron sent Instagrams from the White House. Without either man engaging in visible protest or the most obvious forms of social resistance, LeBron and his mentor JAY-Z are bringing a new definition of black masculine identity and achievement to the public realm. It grants them access to Frank Sinatra–level autonomy and Barack Obama–level audacity, without forcing them to give up the hustling ethic that unites hip hop and black versions of basketball.

  The transformative interaction of art and athletics, of hip hop and hoops, offers a powerful antidote to the exploitation of black athletes and entertainers. JAY-Z and LeBron have helped to facilitate a remarkable transformation beyond their own stage and court: a new generation of ballers and rappers are redefining success with a black twist as they polish their brands and expand their market reach. This is more than wealth creation. It is the politics of social justice injected into sports and entertainment. It is about creating opportunities for black enterprise and opening doors for other black folk—a crucial goal of black politics and protest. JAY-Z and LeBron are proxies of a persistent push for black progress. They embody the reversal of the paradigm of white agents, executives, and accountants ripping off black figures and reducing their economic efficacy and, therefore, their political power. When LeBron fires white folk and hires black folk, it is not reverse racism, nor merely a reversal of racially unjust patterns of business. It is the fruitful outcome of the opportunity given to black talent. It is a proud and effective affirmation of black excellence. It is bright hustling at its best.

  There is little illusion, however, that their success offsets the vicious blowback to black progress. Nor does it singlehandedly counter deeply rooted racial injustice. To be sure, the bulk of poor black folk remain trapped in circumstances where poverty, social dislocation, shrinking government welfare, gang warfare, and other forms of chaotic violence persist. The heroic achievement of hip hop and athletic stars alike—and the reason their arcs of emergence and escape are similarly celebrated—is public recognition for their talent. And the recognition of their talent leads to a recognition of black talent in other arenas. Those who are in a position to hustle, to climb and strive because of education, find hope and inspiration to excel in their realms of pursuit because of LeBron and Jay’s narratives of success. Those who are left behind in poor neighborhoods project their desires and pin their hopes on those who escape.

  Inside and outside black hoods across America, a potent narrative has formed that argues there are only three ways out of the ghetto: hustling, hip hop, and hoops. JAY-Z’s narrator on 2002’s “Some How Some Way” acknowledges this holy trinity of escape routes while throwing in comedy to boot. He also gives a nod to the earnest labor of the working class while desperately wishing to leave the dangerous life of hustling behind.

  Whether we dribble out this motherfucker

  Rap metaphors and riddle out this motherfucker

  Work second floors, hospital out this motherfucker

  Some how we gotta get up out this motherfucker

  Some day the cops’ll kill a muh’fucker

  I don’t always wanna be this drug dealing muh’fucker, damn

  And even though one comes from hoops and the other from hip hop, LeBron’s and JAY-Z’s careers reveal a sublime convergence. They show the best way out of the ghetto is to use God-given talent and heroic hustle to relentlessly fight the inequality that holds back so many black folk.

  Of course, when prominent blacks hustle hard to take hold of that dream and exercise their rights and privileges, the broader culture doesn’t always accept it. Barack Obama studied hard, went to Harvard, and became president, and yet that hard-won achievement remained a sore spot for the millions who refused to see him as American and the politicians who blocked his legislation. Not everyone wanted to bolster his agenda to reach all segments of society. When, nearly ten years ago, LeBron sought to exercise his right to free agency like so many have done before him, he encountered ill will and strong resistance. King James was dethroned in the hearts of millions and became the NBA’s bête noire after divorcing the Cleveland Cavaliers and pledging his free-agent love to the Miami Heat. His sin was forgetting that he couldn’t fire owners who reserved the right to fire players. Yet today he stands astride far more than the sports world, as his corporate interests and endorsement deals prove.

  But the resistance to LeBron wasn’t exclusively about his controversial method of departure, in which the ballplayer chose to announce his leaving Cleveland for Miami in a nationally televised special, “The Decision,” that raised $6 million for charity. LeBron was hung in effigy and exposed to the racial animus of thwarted fans in Cleveland, which proved how shallow the love was to begin with. That response reflected an experience common to other black stars, who know that once they exceed expectations, or transgress norms or limits or boundaries in a way that few other blacks before them have done, there is hell to pay. When the Miami Heat darkened the White House to celebrate their first championship, King James and President Obama may have had more to discuss than their love for ball and hip hop.

  The history of black struggle against the odds, the legacy of black hustling to soar above limits, suggests that the same black culture that is perceived by some as portending trouble and provokes their ire will eventually find its rhythm of acceptance in the broad arena of American society. This arc will play out in athletic and pop cultures before politics. That is why there was a Jackie Robinson before there was a Martin Luther King, Jr., a JAY-Z before there was a Barack Obama. (Of course, sometimes the road to betterment is winding, the struggle protracted, the progress delayed. As the political arc of Muhammad Ali suggests, Colin Kaepernick, now an outcast in professional football for taking a stand against police brutality and racial oppression, may very well be widely celebrated one day for his heroic resistance.)

  Remarkably, the Two Kings iteration of the hustle and dream of equality—You are not going to tell me how to be me, and I have the cash, the credib
ility, and the talent to make sure I do it my way with your children’s blessing—has found broad acceptance in American society. Past pioneers of black style and swag paid a heavy price so that today’s bright hustlers could enjoy the fruits of their labor. There would be no tattooed LeBron James, whose body art and style may be a source of curiosity but not outright revulsion, without Allen Iverson, who pioneered body art and style. And the lineage stretches back to 2Pac, whose inked body narrated the truths of his existence and inspired Iverson. When Iverson came into the NBA more than twenty years ago, he was considered a menace and a thug because of his cornrows and the tattoos that were famously airbrushed from his body when he appeared on the cover of the NBA’s Hoop magazine. Those tattoos are no longer seen as the province of thugs but as creative self-expression.

  When in 2005 NBA commissioner David Stern imposed a dress code that took aim at the most obvious signifiers of hip hop culture, including sagging pants, large jewelry, Timberlands, and do-rags, it was perceived by critics as a thinly veiled attempt to suppress the growing influence of black culture. But by then, basketball’s biggest stars, including LeBron, had moved on to more prestigious designer brands. Again, they took their inspiration from rappers like JAY-Z, who would “Change Clothes,” as one of his songs about maturing suggested, moving from the recording studio to the boardroom. While few were looking, something profound was brewing: the hip hopper and baller became America’s new superstars, and no dress codes, social obstacles, stylistic aversions, or racial barriers could keep them down. Dress code or no, NBA stars wove their styles into the fabric of American culture one stitch at a time, using catchy eyewear and flamboyant colors to align themselves with the brash and independent artistry of rappers.