This book helped, a little, but in the end I suspect I am more like Kathleen Norris, whose reaction to reading proofs Jay Z quotes in his afterword of this edition. Except I am trying to get it, but very slowly and probably poorly because I have no idea what I’m doing. The problem is that so many people don’t even know how to listen to the music. The problem isn’t in the rap or the rapper or the culture. Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don’t bother trying to get it. I might like the beat or the flow, maybe there’s a hook that stands out that I enjoy, and I can groove to it when it comes on. Part of it is that I don’t often understand the lyrics when I hear a rap song. My typical musical discovery involves hearing a song that I like somewhere, figuring out who performs it, and then going through their catalogue to discover if I want all the things or just that track, then buying accordingly. More importantly, though, I lack any clear idea of who I should try to listen to. My music collection is not devoid of hip hop either, but those songs are few and far between. I rock out to classical music cranked loud with my windows down I dance around my kitchen to Florence + the Machine or my classroom to … well, pretty much anything. Although I would say that my “favourite” music tends towards a fairly narrow swath of sound, and my tastes are decidedly more pop than hard rock in later years, I appreciate a lot of different sounds, albeit perhaps not equally. This is not a whim on my part but a recognition of a gap in my otherwise wide musical listening. A friend lent Decoded me after I expressed a desire to “get into hip hop”.

Decoded jay z book review