So I currently don’t have a job. Other than my stand up comedy which honestly doesn’t pay enough for me to enjoy the lavish lifestyles rap videos tell me I should be aiming for. Jay-z may have had 99 problems but I feel like if one of those had been unemployment, we wouldn’t know who Jay-z was. Because we live in a society where you need to have money to make money. I’m not suggesting Shawn Corey Carter didn’t have to work hard to ‘get dat money’, I’m just saying the point at which he decided to tell us about his problems, he already had one big solution. Money.
Money can’t buy happiness you’re right, but it can buy publishing deals, PR, advertising etc so come on 2003 Jay-z, that was from your 8th studio album, let’s not get it twisted that you were rich as hell by then.
I know rich people have just as much right to complain about things as the rest of us but at the same time I want to say to them “really?!”, What are those 99 problems Shawn? You can’t decide between Quinoa or Lobster for dinner. Beyonce wants to go to Cuba and you want to go to Milan. Your pockets aren’t big enough to carry the bundles of cash required to help women get over your face and personality and sleep with you EVEN THOUGH you’re with Beyonce. BEYONCE. That’s like Bill Gates stealing £10 from me. It’s wrong. But on multiple, very confusing levels.
I know I titled this “Jobless” although it has primarily been focused on a song Jay-z released in 2003 however I was still in school then and haven’t fully grasped my own fury at the hypocrisy of everything in that man’s life. How dare you complain about problems after Big Daddy Kane helped you so much at the start. You went to school with B.I.G and Busta Rhymes. If you didn’t make it in rap it would have been ridiculous.
What was my point again? Oh yeah, maybe I should start selling crack. That seems to be how a lot of people I respect start up. It seems like there are about 2 ways to make a success of life. Either be handed things by your family or sell drugs on the streets.
And since I don’t have an affluent family I think I may have to resort to travelling to 1980s Brooklyn and shifting that sweet rock to those wanting to fuck their lives up.
Seems like either choice involves some level of an ethical self lobotomy.
On the plus side, that whole album is a banger so I think I’ll have a listen.
Jake Pickford 