Jay Z's Autobiography

**David Senra** (0:00)
I made this episode about two years ago, and I wanted to repost it in case you missed it the first time, because it's one of my favorite episodes that I've ever made, and because I'm currently working on another new episode that's going to be about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. There's actually a great Michael Jordan story in this episode about when Jay Z had dinner with Michael. There's also a reference to my daily practice, something else I learned from both Jay Z and Michael Jordan. But there's a reference in this episode about my daily practice of reading and rereading my notes and highlights in what I call this gigantic searchable database. You'll hear it about like 11, 12 minutes into this episode. But I reference this gigantic searchable database of all my notes and highlights, the fact that they're in this app called Readwise. And I actually didn't know it at the time I made this episode, but two years later, I would partner with Readwise to build a version where you, you can actually see exactly what I see. So you can get access to all my notes and highlights, this gigantic searchable database on the history of entrepreneurship by signing up for Founders Notes. That's founders with an S, foundersnotes.com. You can sign up by going to foundersnotes.com. And now for a limited time only, you can sign up and pay once and get access to every highlight and note I have ever done and every highlight and note I will ever do. No ongoing subscription, pay once, you're in forever. This becomes a tool that you can then use your entire career to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs. Do not dilly dally, time is limited and this offer could end at any time. Sign up now at foundersnotes.com, that is founders with an S, foundersnotes.com, and I hope you enjoy this episode on Jay Z.
It was the 70s, and heroin was still heavy in the hood.
Unpredictability was one of the things that we counted on. Like the day when I wandered up to something I'd never seen before, a cipher.
But I wouldn't have called it that. No one would have back then.
I shouldered my way through the crowd towards the middle.
It felt like gravity pulling me into that swirl of kids. No bullshit, like a planet being pulled into orbit by a star.
His name was Slate, and he was a kid I used to see around the neighborhood. An older kid who had barely made an impression on me.
In that circle, though, he was transformed, like the church ladies touched by the spirit, and everyone was mesmerized. He was rhyming, throwing out couplet after couplet, like he was in a trance, for a crazy long time, 30 minutes straight off the top of his head, never losing the beat, writing the hand claps. He rhymed about nothing, the sidewalk, the benches, or he'd go in on the kids who were standing around listening to him. And then he'd go in on how clean he was, how nice he was with the ball, how all the girls loved him. Then he'd start rhyming about the rhymes themselves, how good they were, how much better they were than yours, and how he was the best that ever did it. All he had were his eyes, taking in everything and the words inside him.
I was dazzled. That's some cool shit was the first thing I thought. Then I could do that.
That night, I started writing rhymes in my notebook. From the beginning, it was easy, a constant flow. For days, I filled page after page. Then I'd bang out a beat on the table, my bedroom window, whatever had a flat surface, and practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep.
I saw it as an opening, a way to recreate myself and reimagine my world.
After I recorded a rhyme, it gave me an unbelievable rush to play it back, to hear that voice.
Everywhere I went, I'd write.
If I was crossing the street with my friends and a rhyme came to me, I'd break out my binder, spread it on a mailbox or lamp post, and write the rhyme before I crossed the street.
Even back then, I thought it was the best.
I'd spend my free time reading the dictionary, building my vocabulary. I could be roofless, calm as fuck on the outside, but flooded with adrenaline.
I wasn't even in high school yet, and I discovered my voice.
That is an excerpt from the book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, which is Jay Z's memoir, and it's called Decoded.