The Jay-Z
«Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week» from Jay-Z - Diamonds are Forever (Remix)
Personal
Personal >> A perfect dealA perfect deal
If the sound in the album "In my lifetime" was a bit glossy, in Vol.2 Hard Knock Life it was rougher. One of the notable songs of the disc is "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" which became a signature song of Jay-Z. He became identified with it in spite of the fact that he was very productive as a musician and had success with the great number of songs. It often happens itself but at times it is used as a marketing tool for the promotion purposes. This way the recordings are distributed and fans base is formed. The song samples the "It's the Hard-Knock Life" song from the famous musical Annie performed in the Broadway theatre. 45 King produced this song. This single of Jay-Z happened to be the most successful one from the commercial viewpoint. The gold status it received was not the only proof of its success. On Grammy Awards in 1999 it also received the nomination of the Best Rap Solo Performance. It was enlisted as well into The 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs where it took the eleventh place. This song was parodied later in Austin Powers's movie by its famous character Dr.Evil. It is common knowledge that if song is parodied it had a huge success.
Strange as it may seem, but the composer Charnin who wrote the song was not warned in advance about it, but nobody was going to violate when the song was recorded already, it was sent to the composer to obtain his permission. If Jay-Z asked the permission to make a ghetto anthem out of it without the song ready, the composer would have never agreed to do it. But it was demonstrated to him the way it was and it solved the matter.
Do you remember that Annie was the most performed Broadway musical which managed to earn to record for the musical sum of 480 million dollars. The troubles of Annie are shown through the life of the rapper (Jigga-penned life). Actually it was a good business deal as Charnin received some sum for the initial use of the song (from about 25 to 50 thousand dollars) and required the royalty rate. Charnin called it standard. But just imagine what the ultimate sum is even if the composer receives let us say 5 cents for a unit? It is not hard to calculate it for the five million copies of the album as it was certified five times Platinum already. The final single of the album "Nigga What, Nigga Who", produced by Timbaland with featuring of Big Jaz and Amil is the vivid example of talent of Jay-Z. The title of the song was changed for radio and for video performance into "Jigga What, Jigga Who". There were a number of changers made in the lyrics of the singer for the same reason.