DECEMBER 4 A STAR IS BORN: AN EXTRACT FROM THE JAY Z BIOGRAPHY IN "H.I.A.G.S"
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GROWING UP IN A WORLD WHERE DEATH AND IMPRISONMENT ARE NORMAL OCCURRENCES WILL MOLD A PERSON IN A UNIQUE WAY.
Sean Carter compared the environment he was raised in to a game of boxing. “In these games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic, you learn how to compete as if your life depended on it.”
It is those learnings that have enabled him to become the number one entertainment–entrepreneur in the world. This is how he did it.
Sean Carter was born on a somber 4th December, in 1969 New York City. 21 year old Fred Hampton had been the latest black leader to be assassinated by government forces that day, in the effort to prevent a cohesive African–American political movement forming. Since the murders of the great civil rights leaders, Martin and Malcolm, the black community were feeling more disenfranchised, more excluded, more dejected from the land they called home. How could you feel a sense of ‘belonging’ to a country that discriminated against you in work, school, service provision and now was actively trying to divide and segregate your community? Black neighborhoods like Marcy Housing Projects, Brooklyn, New York, were a different country.
Sean Carter was raised in, and by, Marcy. A landscape built to locate the poorest in the city, where bad schools and meager access to public assistance were the norm.
“Our self-esteem is low,” says Sean, “because in these neighborhoods we’re taught we’re less than, we’re not equal to everyone else in the world.”
Though this would also be the perfect breeding ground for Hip Hop.
The neighborhood was calm, where as a child Sean could play with his friends on their bikes or on the abandoned boat that for some reason lay in Marcy playground, as if someone had once dreamed of making it out ‘by any means’ via the Hudson River.
But when the calm was broken, the neighborhood erupted.
From the mid 70’s the area was becoming a hotbed for drugs and gangs, which inevitably brought violence. “There could be people shooting outside at 12 noon on Sundays,” Sean remembers.2 As a nine years old he witnessed his older friend Benny fall to the ground in a pool of blood. Executed in the hallway outside his apartment.
The Carter family (Gloria, Adnis, two daughters and two sons) were six of the 4,300 residents that filled Marcy’s 1,700 apartments. Their government subsidized, 5C, home played a large role in the community. Sean’s parents loved music and their extensive record collection, which included the first ‘rap’ records by King James the Third and Sugar Hill Gang (1979), was continually playing in the apartment, which would host regular neighborhood parties.
“Both my mom and dad had an afro. We lived in a supercool house,” Sean remembers. “They had the biggest record collection in the neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood came to party.”
Family, friends and music were the three dominant parts of childhood.
“My early days shaped my musical vocabulary. I remember the music making me feel good, bringing my family together and being a common passion my family shared.”
As a boy Sean would mimic performances seen on late night TV shows with his sisters; singing and dancing in a family living room band.
Apart from the direct musical influence his parents had on him, growing up Sean also learned skills that would be indirectly applied to rap. As a boy his father taught him how to closely observe life as they traveled around New York and when they visited aunts and uncles in other cities. Sean would have to lead the way, so would need to pay close attention to his surroundings.
“[My dad] taught me that life was a giant chessboard where you had to be aware in the moment, but also thinking a few moves ahead.”
Intimate observation is at the heart of any art. The ability to look closely at the world and make connections, then describe and communicate them in creative ways is the spirit of rap, and any serious art form. As poet Wallace Stevens said, “A poet looks at the world, the way a man looks at a woman.”
All these experiences: the unfiltered project environment, his parent’s musical influence, and his fathers teachings, laid the foundation for Sean’s future. But he needed to first find the thing that would enable him to put the pieces together. Luckily it would soon find him. “
