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Title details for JAY-Z by Michael Eric Dyson - Available

JAY-Z

Made in America

by Michael Eric Dyson
Pharrell
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

This program is read by the author, and includes an introduction written by Pharrell, and read by Nick Cannon.
"Dyson's incisive analysis of JAY-Z's brilliance not only offers a brief history of hip-hop's critical place in American culture, but also hints at how we can best move forward." —Questlove
JAY-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson's decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he's sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he's been for so long.
This audiobook wrestles with the biggest themes of JAY-Z's career, including hustling, and it recognizes the way that he's always weaved politics into his music, making important statements about race, criminal justice, black wealth and social injustice. As he enters his fifties, and to mark his thirty years as a recording artist, this is the perfect time to take a look at JAY-Z's career and his role in making this nation what it is today. In many ways, this is JAY-Z's America as much as it's Pelosi's America, or Trump's America, or Martin Luther King's America. JAY-Z has given this country a language to think with and words to live by.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 26, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250750211
      • File size: 161138 KB
      • Duration: 05:35:42

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 30, 2019
      In this astute cultural biography, Dyson (Tears We Cannot Stop) analyzes the impact of Jay-Z through his music—from his hard-knock life as a drug dealer from Brooklyn, to his becoming a billionaire rapper and husband of megastar Beyoncé. “The more I pore over his lyrics,” writes Dyson, who teaches a course on Jay-Z at Georgetown University, “the more I realize that I am dealing with an extremely intelligent poet whose work matches the poets I’ve admired since childhood... Tennyson, Hughes, Brooks and Yeats.” With lyrics including “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man! Let me handle my business, damn,” Dyson cites Jay-Z’s “use of braggadocio and allusion, signifying and double entendre, metaphor and homophones.” Dyson explores how Jay-Z created profound, meaningful art out of bleak urban decay. “When we hear JAY-Z,” Dyson writes, “we listen to the incomparable tongue of American democracy expressed by a people too long held underfoot.” Dyson compares Jay-Z to Barack Obama (“both tremendously charismatic men... married to strong and brilliant women”), and recalls Jay-Z’s campaign ads for Obama and a tongue-in-cheek song he performed on the eve of Obama’s inauguration, featuring the line “My president is black/ In fact he’s half white/ So even in a racist mind/ He’s half right”. Dyson’s excellent study serves as a succinct blueprint of Jay-Z’s artistry and legacy.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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