From the outside looking in, a lot of folks wondered how SEAN CARTER came to be the president of Def Jam records. Even the record industry people that knew JAY-Z had a difficult time in conducting a prolonged conversation without succumbing to rapping were slightly amused.
Again, from the outside looking inward it is one of the greatest rags to riches stories. Parallel in some ways to that of the little orphan Annie whose theme song gave the under five years old crew another tune to drone on about in JAY-Z’s catalog other than the ‘Jigga, My Nigga‘ song (which by the way I first heard sung by a five year old holding his mother’s hand while she shopped in the Fulton Mall). Despite his penchant for simple hooks that attract infants and those of us with the same brain capacity, JAY-Z doesn’t rank in the BILLY SUNDAY Top 5 G.O.A.T. crapper list. However, the self-proclaimed G.O.A.T. must owe some serious scrilla to SEAN CARTER.
I am not going to drag this post out for too long just to say that I had an epiphany this past weekend. I finally had the chance to listen to the ‘Grey Album’ and some other classic JAY-Z material. All I heard on these songs was LL COOL J’s inflections and cadence. It dawned on me that JAY-Z has been writing lyrics for LL COOL J for prah’lee at least 15 years. That is definitely SEAN CARTER’s pen work on ‘Boomin’ System’ and ‘Jinglin’ Baby’.
How else could JAY-Z supersede LL COOL J and DMX to ascend to the mythic position of label president? He had to have the leverage of his total writing catalog and not just his affiliation as Mr.BeYONCE KNOWLES. Its become obvious that SEAN CARTER has the business acumen of a Roc-A-Wear wristband for letting the JUELZ SANTANA project cool down and lose momentum while having the GHOSTFACE album damn near delayed until summer. The T.I.’s at Island Records Group which is owned by Universal Music Group, which is owned by General Electric will eventually get around to counting their beans at Def Jam.
So you can expect for JAY-Z to be releasing an album during the third quarter of 2006. Or getting a visit from the terminator, BOBA FETT.
