Original subtitles

[♪ "New York (Concept de Paris)" by Jay-Z playing]

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ In-in, in New York ♪

♪ In New York ♪

[♪ music stops abruptly]

This song, I've always listened to that Gil Scott-Heron song...

and I always wanted to do like a mashup of these two.

But I had this idea for a while, and that hook

added the darkness to an otherwise bright song.

And it just meshed perfectly with the third verse,

because that dream and hope.

Yeah, it is hopeful, and it does happen,

but there's a lot of people that don't make it.

You know, it was the reality...

- Yes. - ...of the-- the song, you know.

"Lights is blinding, girls need blinders,

"so they could step out of bounds quick.

The sidelines--" out of bounds is the sideline.

- Yes. - "The sidelines is filled with tragedies

"who sip the life casually, then gradually become worse.

"Don't bite the Ad-- apple, Eve.

"Caught up in the in-crowd. Now you're in style.

Anna, the winter gets cold in vogue with your skin out."

- You know, it's-- - Anna Wintour and Vogue.

[Jay-Z] Anna Wintour, the winter time and...

- And in Vogue. In Vogue. - It being in Vogue.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

So yeah, it just gave it the darkness.

His voice is just so beautiful

and it's just like, "Lord have mercy."

- Yeah. - It's just...

"Mercy on me," it's almost like he was begging.

Like, he was like, his...

- Yeah. - You know.

This-- this also speaks to the regenerative nature of music

because you took a older song...

- Mm-hmm. - ...and made it new.

- Yeah. - With your lyrics.

And you took an older track, and made it new...

- Yeah. - ...by seeing it through new eyes.

And that's hip-hop.

- That's what hip-hop is. - That's hip-hop, exactly what hip-hop is.

- That is what hip-hop is. - Yeah.

[♪ "The Story of O.J." playing]

♪ Skin is, skin ♪

Yeah, this song was-- always was like...

The song, or the sample, or everything?

- Yeah. - Everything.

- Yeah. - ♪ Skin black ♪

♪ ...black ♪

♪ My skin is yellow ♪

"I like that second one."

[♪ music stops abruptly]

Yeah. [chuckles]

- Uh... - What's the inspiration for the song?

- How'd it start? - The original song.

I just listened to that all the time.

I sent, uh, Dion, No I.D.,

- the producer, I sent him... - Yeah.

...like a playlist of things that I was really, like, just...

meant a lot to me, and that Nina Simone song

was one of them.

And in that one, they were talking about the personality--

the different shades of Black women.

I think it's all-- all Black women.

And, um, the story she told was a painful one.

And then...

I was like-- I wanted to tell the story of America

and, uh, the culture,

and the in-fighting between us

as a race.

It's like, "nigga," like no.

It's we-- it's-- don't-- they don't look at you

any differently than they look at,

you know, a rich athlete.

And then sometimes, you know, the bourgeoisie, um...

they get into a place where they think

they're above, um...

the racial stereotypes.

- That's the OJ line. - And that's what OJ,

he was-- he was a victim of that.

You know, he-- he wanted to be the only one in Brentwood.

Like, you know, "I'm different. I'm OJ."

Like, okay. [chuckles]

That's-- it works un-- it works until it doesn't.

- Yeah. - It's all great,

and all the country clubs, and yeah, you get--

you're the one person they let in.

But wait till you-- wait till you do something.

Wait till you trip up.

It's-- 'cause it's not real.

It's not real, except you there because you are the, you know.

You've reached a certain status that it's okay.

- Mm-hmm. - You know.

And that's a trap.

And really just speaking about in terms, you know.

"Okay," as-- as far as the lyrics go,

"Okay" is my favorite moment.

Just the space of that.

"I'm not Black, I'm O.J."

And it be like... [vocalizing]

- "Okay." - "Okay." Like the way that drops...

- Yeah. - ...it's just like a-- it's a songwriting choice

that for me, it's just like, say nothing.

- No, and it says everything. - And it says everything.

Just the space gives it its power.

[Jay-Z] Yeah.

[♪ "No Church in the Wild" playing]

"Your love is my scripture.

Let me in through your encryption."

Let's stop-- stop now.

- [♪ music stops abruptly] - [Rick Rubin] Yeah.

- Whew. [chuckles] - Tell me about the words.

We have to start with Frank's chorus.

- Mm. - How he-- he builds on it.

A bunch of human beings creates a mob.

How he build that, "Human beings in a mob.

What's a mob to a king?" A king can control a mob.

"What's a king to a God?"

It's like, you reach the entire-- that's it.

That's it, it's done. You reached the top

- of the food chain. - Yeah.

And then, breaks it down to,

"What's a God to a non-believer?"

Nothing.

The idea of challenging structure.

There's no church in the wild, right?

All-- all good people are not bad, and all bad people.

We're all humans.

- Mm-hmm. - Good people do bad things.

Bad people do good things.

- Drug dealers could give out turkeys... - Mm-hmm.

- ...and priests can touch children. - Mm-hmm.

There's no church in the wild, like, we're all just looking

at our own moral compass...

and trying to do the right thing.

"Tears on the mausoleum floor.

Blood stains the Colosseum doors."

All the death that happened in that place

in the name of entertainment.

- Yes. - And we as people, we watched...

- Yes. Yes. - ...and we cheered,

and we watched people being slaughtered.

- Yes. - You know.

All in the name of entertainment.

- Mm-hmm. - We didn't think they were doing anything wrong.

There was children watching that and cheering on the mob, you know?

Um, "Blood stains the Colosseum doors,

"lies on the lips of a priest.

Thanksgiving disguised as a feast."

The idea of what Thanksgiving has been taught to us...

- Yes. - ...versus the reality

is sickening, it's sad.

- Yeah. - You know.

That's what we've been taught,

and that's what, you know, we still celebrate to this day.

And we know what it is.

Everyone know what-- what happened,

the real story of what happened.

But these are the things that were built up

as holy and, like, thing in our life.

I'm gonna tear some of these shits down.

Like some of the statues that sit of-- of racist people

that owned slaves, et cetera, et cetera,

that's-- that's all over the-- this world.

And it was just like tearing all those things down.

"Thanksgiving disguised as a feast.

"Rolling in the Rolls-Royce Corniche.

Only the doctors got this." We talked about that, yes.

- Yeah. - "I'm hiding from police,

cocaine seats, all white." Like, I'm hiding from police,

because when you see that car come by,

I'm hiding in plain sight.

But you don't think...

when that car come by, only the doctors got this.

- Yeah. - Right? You don't-- you don't see who's inside.

You-- you assume a doctor just drove by you.

"Only the doctors got this. I'm hiding from police.

"Cocaine seat all white like I got the whole thing bleached.

Drug dealer chic, I'm wondering if a thug's prayers reach."

- You know, this-- back to the idea... - Yeah.

...of if you've done bad things,

will you-- are you getting into heaven?

Or-- or are you good?

Forget about that-- that space.

Just humanly, are you a good person?

- You've done bad things, but are you still a good person? - Yeah.

And are-- will your prayers be answered?

That's right, and will your prayers be answered?

"It's Pius pious?" You know, that age-old question.

Which one is it? "Is Pius pious,

'cause God love Pius?"

- It's-- yeah, is Pius-- - Yeah, chicken or the egg.

Yeah, "Is Pius pious 'cause God love Pius?

"Socrates asked whose bias do y'all seek.

All for Plato--" we play on money, "play dough."

- Oh, I never got that. - "All for Plato.

"Screech. I'm out here balling.

"I know y'all hear my sneaks.

"Jesus was a carpenter. Yeezy laid beats.

Jesus was a carpenter. Just a-- just a normal man

about the town.

- Yeah. - "Hova flow the Holy Ghost.

Get the hell up out your seats. Preach."

Yeah, so it's just about challenging

the idea of good and bad.

What's good? What's bad?

You know, we're not perfect human beings, we're just here.

We're spiritual beings having a human experience.

Yeah. And we're doing our best.

- And we're doing our best. - Mm.

[♪ "Family Feud" playing]

- ♪ Amen ♪ - ♪ Can I get an amen from the congregation? ♪

Raps used to be so-- so non-politically correct.

- Yeah. - It was so offensive,

that we got so far away from it, for good or bad.

- Yeah. - 'Cause there was good and bad in it, you know?

♪ I'll be damned if I drink some Belvedere ♪

♪ While Puff got Cîroc ♪

♪ Y'all need to stop ♪

- [♪ music stops abruptly] - Hm.

The family feud. You know, the in-fighting again,

to go along with that, uh, Story of O.J.

We always say that, "When we get together,

we be so strong together and we can do these things,"

and we never do.

Whether it's, you know, still psychological damage

from being separated in slavery,

house and field, where we had to compete.

We had to compete for the approval

and to be inside the house.

You know, that's-- that's still in our DNA

like everything else, like eye color,

and like, you know, anxiety is in your DNA.

Like, you pass-- you passing that on to your children.

So, we passing our mentality to generation

to generation, to generations.

And-- and the gatekeepers

who speak for us are shortsighted.

And may even have other agendas.

Or maybe just extortionists.

You know, go to one place and say,

"You want our support? Give us the money."

And then, go to another place and say-- you know.

- Mm-hmm. - So, we're not getting--

We're not getting it as a race together.

- Mm-hmm. - We're slowly getting there separately,

but it's not a concerted effort of us to align our-- our powers

and our finances to benefit our community in this society.

I just take this opportunity to talk about the differences

and how people say, like, you know, old rap be like,

"Yo, it's better before. Nobody was wearing dresses."

And we was like, "Yeah, but Tupac had a nose ring."

Y'all were saying that then,

- and he turned out to be Tupac, right? - Yeah.

So, let's stop pointing out the differences

between each other

and figure out a way to work together.

"What's better than one billionaire? Two."

You know, it's like the idea of us

putting our collective powers together

to take care of our community

and-- and not ask for things outside of our community, right?

'Cause that's what tends to happen.

"How is Pill Cosby supposed to help me?"

How is these guys gonna help me? They never accepted me.

They-- they were the same ones in the front lines

saying, "Rap is a fad, it's just terrible music.

It's destructive to the brains of our children."

They never accepted us.

How are they gonna help us?

They never accepted us.

They don't believe in what we're doing.

They see us as less than our threat.

You're not gonna get the way through that door.

You better ha-- we better create our own door.

We better create a different door.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Oh, this whole second verse is, you know, again,

my love of cinema, and like, The Godfather and all that.

"A man that don't take care of his family can't be rich."

That's a line from The Godfather.

You know, like, I think Sonny at the wedding

goes upstairs, and he has, like, a fling

in, like, a closet or something.

And his dad doesn't see the affair.

He just knows he's missing. Dad knows his son.

So, when he comes down, he admonishes him in this way.

He-- he doesn't-- he does it by not speaking to him.

He says, "Son, you got a family at home?"

- He's talking to his son. - Yeah.

But he does it through him.

You know, 'cause "a man doesn't take care of his family--"

- He says some other thing. - Mm-hmm.

But I kinda took the feeling of that...

- Yes. - ...and added the end, "family can't be rich."

I don't think he says "can't be rich."

- He says something else. - Yes. Yes, yes.

"A man that don't take care of his family can't be rich.

I'll watch Godfather," where I pulled it from,

the source material, "I miss the whole shit."

And what I miss was the first couple times

I seen Godfather, and I was like...

somebody set him up for that to happen.

But he was party to it, too.

- Yes. - He brought that

- to his door as well. - Yes.

- Yes. - You know.

- First hundred times... - Yes.

...I watched it, I was like, Michael,

he was so-- he had so much common sense.

He knew that he looked and seen, "Why are these curtains open?

- These curtains are never open." - Yeah.

Which saved his life.

- But I missed the part that... - Yeah.

...yeah, he had to save his life because of what he was doing.

His-- his actions still created...

a reaction, and this is part of the reaction, you know?

- Yeah. Yeah. - So, I missed that part of it.

You know, "my consciousness was Michael's common sense."

- Yes. - That's the level of consciousness that I was on...

- Yes. - ...that I saw his common sense.

Because that was also how you lived your life.

- Exactly. - You were looking for those types of things.

- Exactly. - You weren't looking for emotional...

- Exactly. - ...d-dangerous emotional territory.

- That's right. - So, you missed that

'cause that wasn't part of your experience.

Yes. "My consciousness

- was Michael's common sense." - Yeah.

"I missed the karma that came as a consequence.

"They busting off through the curtains

'cause she hurting. Kay losing the family--"

- The emotional strain that it had on her. - Yes.

"'Cause their future's uncertain."

- Yes. - "Nobody wins when the family feuds.

We all screwed 'cause we never had the tools."

- Yeah. - "I'm trying to fix you."

[chuckles] You know, he's like, "I'm trying to give you

"the tools that I learned,

"you know, 'cause I know you don't have the tools.

I didn't have the tools." You know, I'm just

I'm just finding the tools, you know, uh, in my life.

And I had to go through what I had to go through

in order to even get here.

You know, yeah, but the-- the overarching theme is,

we have to figure out a way to pool our resources

to save ourselves.

Nobody's coming to save us.

There's no Superman, there's no superhero

that's coming to save us, and we gotta figure out,

how do we take our resources

and help our community?

- Beautiful. - Yeah.

[♪ "Legacy" playing]

♪ Someday we'll all be free ♪

♪ Legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy ♪

♪ Black excellency, baby, let 'em see ♪

♪ Legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy ♪

♪ Black excellency, baby, let 'em see ♪

♪ Someday, someday, we all ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

[♪ song ends]

- Yeah. - That was a great follow-up to what we was talking about.

- Perfect, on time. - You know, it's like the idea

of generational trauma and wealth.

You know, and like, that-- that line, I loved it.

It's like, "the Red Queen's race.

You run this hard just to stay in place."

- Yeah. - Like, we're just doing all this and working so hard

just to be at zero.

- Yes. - And because of the generational trauma,

that's how far we were set back.

"That charge of energy set all the Carters back."

It took all these years to get to zero.

- Yes. - In fact, I hated religion.

There's the story of my grandfather

on my father's side,

who had a baby with his child, his daughter.

And...

this is a preacher.

So, it just broke the family apart.

- Yeah. - Like, just, you know.

It's like, obviously, those secrets

were kept for years and years. I didn't find that out

till I was doing The Black Album, like-- like...

- Wow. - ...late, late in life.

How did you find out?

It was like, finally, it's like, "You know what happened, right?"

Like that type of thing, like,

no one talked about it forever, and then--

Did everyone know and not you, or who knew

- and who didn't? - I think-- I think most people knew.

- Most of the adults knew. - Yeah.

It was like, you know, "She got sent down south,"

- that thing. It happened... - Yeah, yeah.

...more than we wanna talk about.

And it's hard for me to talk about.

- This is my grandfather. - Yeah.

But then, even seeing the-- seeing--

again, seeing from someone's perspective.

Like, imagine being charged with being able to deliver the word.

- Mm-hmm. - And these are the demons that you have.

You know, you can find a way to feel sorry for him,

how painful and how sick

that must have been for him to have this gift...

- Yes. - ...and then on the other side,

have these demons as equal to the gift.

- The gift-- - But human.

- But human. - Human.

And it's, like, and then see...

the good that came from it.

- Mm-hmm. - "Someday I'll forgive him,

"'cause suddenly, strangely our division

"led to multiple religion.

"I studied Muslim, Buddhist and Christian.

I was running from him, but he was giving me wisdom."

- [chuckles] You know, "See how the universe work?" - Yeah.

"It takes my hurt and helps me find more myself.

It's the gift and a curse," like, took that pain

and turned it into-- to something else.

Yeah. Without the pain, you wouldn't have done the work.

Exactly. Without the pain, you don't do the work.

So, the pain, you don't say it's necessary.

You don't say you need it, but if it's there...

- you use it. - Yeah, it's an opportunity...

- It's an opportunity. - ...for, uh, self-inquiry.

Yes.

- Better understanding. - Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so again, another one of those.

This is part of the 4:44, that's why I don't listen

- to this record. [laughing] - Yeah. [laughing]

It just-- it goes-- it goes really deep.

- It goes there, it goes there. - Yes. Yes.

And the first verse just deals with, you know, for the first time,

you know, when my dad died, I paid for the funeral.

Think I may have paid for the funeral myself.

- I'm sure I paid for the funeral. - Yes.

You know, when someone dies, there's a will left.

There's a-- there's a sit-down, there's lawyers present,

and there's a, what do you say? What's the word when--

- Distribution. - Distribution of assets.

- You're gonna take over this. - Yes.

He's giving you the family business, the house over there.

- You start in a positive place. - Mm-hmm.

- I paid for the funeral. - Yeah.

So, you started to get in debt.

- I had to pay... - Yeah.

...when you passed. There was nothing passed down to me.

So, for the first time in the Carter family,

in our family, we're having the discussion of, you know,

this discussion is like, "Yo, take my piece,

"leave my piece to my children too.

Tidal, the champagne, D'USSE, I like to see,"

and this is what I wanna see.

It's almost like you writing a will in real time.

A nice peace-fund ideas for people who look like we."

- Yes. - "We gonna start a society within society."

Did you actually write a will, or you just put it

- in a song? - I have a will. I have a will.

But it's not-- it's not-- It's way early,

before any of these things really meant anything.

That needs to be written again, but here it is.

Yeah, so the song is really...

- Yeah. - ...closer

- to how-- yeah. - Oh, yeah. Yes.

This is definitely closer to how it would look

than what I wrote...

- you know, before Blue was here. - Yeah.

[chuckles] Yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah. "There was a time

America wouldn't let us ball."

Like play baseball, use that-- that, uh...

"That's major. It's like the Negro League.

"There was a time America wouldn't let us ball.

Those times are now back. It's just called Afro-tech."

So, it's just like another thing.

Like, we're not in a tech space.

- No one owns-- no one of our culture... - Separate. It's separate.

...owns Facebook, or Instagram, or thing like that,

but there's a small subset called Afro-tech.

- It's like the Negro League. - Mm-hmm.

It's the same thing that's come back.

No, we wanna play in the league with everyone.

- Mm-hmm. - We're brilliant,

and we can play in the league with everyone.

We don't want the subset of-- of ideas.

- Another ghetto. - It just-- exactly.

It's just the same thing all over again.

"Generational wealth, that's the key.

"My parents ain't have shit, so that shift started with me.

My mom took her money, she bought me bonds."

So, my mother, one of her jobs later on

was she worked at 1 Centre Street, that building

as soon as you come off the Brooklyn Bridge to the right.

And they-- they dealt in government municipal bonds.

So, that was her access. She knew.

Like, so she bought these little bonds for us as children...

- Yeah. - ...and it was like $5.

- Yeah. - You know, it--

like, and I had a bunch of them by the time I was an adult.

I think she bought me some on my birthday

and I was like 40 or something, like, it's like...

- Yeah. - And it was-- although that--

there's no money in them, it's like very--

- it's small money. - Yes.

- But the idea. - Yes.

- The planning of it... - Yes.

- ...it was just so beautiful. - Yes.

The-- the intention behind it was beautiful.

Like, she-- for the first time in her life, she was planning--

she was doing what I'm saying in the song.

And it was a stretch for her to do whatever she did.

[Jay-Z] Exactly.

But she was planning for our future...

- Yes. - ...by buy-- buying us these bonds.

"That was the sweetest gift of all time."

It was like the most beautiful gift

because the intention of it is just beautiful, like...

Hm.

- Cool, man. - Yeah.

- Thank you for doing this. - Yeah, thank you, man.

- I love you. - Yeah, I love you, too.

- [both laughing] - Give me a hug.

Yeah.

[♪ "Empire State Of Mind" playing]

- Alrighty, let's-- - Great.

- Let's-- Let's go. - That's right.

- This way? - Yes, sir.

♪ Yeah, yeah, I'm out that Brooklyn ♪

♪ Now I'm down in Tribeca right next to De Niro ♪

♪ But I'll be hood forever, I'm the new Sinatra ♪

♪ And since I made it here, I can make it anywhere ♪

♪ Yeah, they love me everywhere ♪

♪ I used to cop in Harlem, hola, my Dominicanos ♪

♪ Right there up on Broadway, brought me back to that McDonald's ♪

♪ Took it to my stash spot, 560 State Street ♪

♪ Catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons whipping pastry ♪

♪ Cruising down 8th Street, off-white Lexus ♪

♪ Driving so slow, but BK is from Texas ♪

♪ Me, I'm out that Bed-Stuy, home of that boy Biggie ♪

♪ Now I live on Billboard and I brought my boys with me ♪

♪ Say what up to Ty Ty, still sipping Mai Tais ♪

♪ Sitting courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high fives ♪

♪ Nigga, I be spiked out, I could trip a referee ♪

♪ Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from ♪

♪ New York ♪

♪ Concrete jungle where dreams are made of ♪

♪ There's nothing you can't do ♪

♪ Now you're in New York ♪

♪ These streets will make you feel brand-new ♪

♪ Big lights will inspire you ♪

- ♪ Come on! ♪ - ♪ Let's hear it for New York ♪

- ♪ New York, New York ♪ - ♪ I made you hot, nigga ♪

♪ Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game ♪

♪ Shit, I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can ♪

♪ You should know I bleed blue, but I ain't a Crip though ♪

♪ But I got a gang of niggas walking with my clique though ♪

♪ Welcome to the melting pot, corners where we selling rock ♪

♪ Afrika Bambaataa shit, home of the hip-hop ♪

♪ Yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back ♪

♪ For foreigners it ain't fair, they act like they forgot how to add ♪

♪ Eight million stories out there in the naked ♪

♪ City, it's a pity half of y'all won't make it ♪

♪ Me, I gotta plug Special Ed... ♪