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«I spring train in the winter, around early December» from Breath Easy, The Blueprint
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Personal >> "American Gangster" inspiration"American Gangster" inspiration
The leak of comeback single of Jay-Z "Show Me What You Got" on the Internet in the beginning of October, that is a more than a month and a half before the release of the album therefore FBI started investigation of the case. The record label of Jay-Z was going to determine the person responsible for the leak and make one answer for the crime. According to the information of the studio, everything was well closed but somehow it still happened.
The next album of Jay-Z "American Gangster" was released a year later. Jay-Z was inspired by a movie of Ridley Scott, which was titled this way with Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe. This is a story about a heroine kingpin of Harlem in the 70-s. The movie had a great resonance for Jay-Z and it was a source of inexhaustible activity for him. He did not even imagine how great his creativeness and energy can be until that time.
The film producer Brian Grazer and Ridley Scott were against of using the film soundtrack therefore Jay-Z suggested using the only the idea and make the album to be associated with the movie only. Jay-Z understood this kind of life better than somebody else could understand. This was special uncensored view of these events from the person who lived in that environment. So it was not the reconstruction of the events told about in the movie, but this was Jay-Z's own perception of the reality of that time in addition to the reconstruction of history and expression of his emotions through music. Jay-Z plays anti-hero, not an executive, when singing a song and refers even to political figures in it: "Blame Reagan for making me into monster."
In music video of "Blue Magic" Jay-Z flashes money - 500 euro notes and this episode was named by Harvard Business School professor "a turning point" and turn of popular culture to globalization. One million copy of "American Gangster" was sold in the US.