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Description edit
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Marcy: Add a description of this character.
- Big Daddy Kane: A rapper huge in the 1980s
- Rakim: Rapper
- Bono
- Clark Kent
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Tony Williams
- Russell Simmons
- Memphis Bleek
- Rick Rubin
- Malcolm
- Katrina
- Lucifer
- Kareem Burke
- Annie
- Mike
- Shawn
- Marvin Gaye
- Stevie Wonder
- George Bush
- Juan
- Barack Obama
- Cristal
- Tupac
- Bill Clinton
- Cypress Hill
- Eminem
- Dee Dee
- Kobe
- Andre Harrell
- Chuck D
- Irv Gotti
- Quincy Jones
- Shyheim
- Biggie Smalls
- Lyor Cohen
- Ruben Rodriguez
- Elizabeth Mendez Berry
- Oprah Winfrey
- Bobby Brown
- Colleek
- Kevin Liles
- Kathleen Norris
- Mark Batson
- Bobby Fischer
Quotes edit
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“Great rap should have all kinds of unresolved layers that you don't necessarily figure out the first time you listen to it. Instead it plants dissonance in your head. You can enjoy a song that knocks in the club or has witty punch lines the first time you hear it. But great rap retains mystery. It leaves shit rattling around in your head that won't make sense till the fifth or sixth time through. It challenges you.”
Jay-Z -
“The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, nigga, bitch, motherfucker and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It's all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or nigga and then they run off yelling, "See!" and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about. But that would be like listening to May Angelou and ignoring everything until you heard her drop a line about drinking or sleeping with someone's husband and then dismissing her as an alcoholic adulterer.”
Jay-Z -
“It's hard to beat the entertainment value of people who deliberately misunderstand the world, people dying to be insulted, running around looking for a bullet to get in front of.”
Jay-Z -
“Hip-hop is the perfect mix between poetry and boxing. Of course, most artists are competitive, but hip-hop is the only art that I know that's built on direct confrontation.”
Jay-Z -
“This is what the streets have done for us, for me: They've given us our drive; they've made us stronger. Through hip-hop we found a way to redeem those lessons, and use them to change the world.”
Jay-Z -
“There are no codes or ethics in music because there are lawyers.”
Jay-Z -
“There's unquestionably magic involved in great music, songwriting, and performances - like those nights when a star athlete is totally in the zone and can't miss. But there's also work. Without the work, the magic won't come.”
Jay-Z -
“The person that betrays you won't yell out his plans to turn on you - but he might think them so loud you can practically hear it.”
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“America did not want to talk about the human damage, or the deeper causes of the carnage. But then here came rap, like the American nightmare come to life. The disturbing shit you thought you locked away for good, buried at the bottom of the ocean, suddenly materialized in your kid's bedroom, laughing it off, cursing loud, and grabbing its nuts, refusing to be ignored.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.
Highlighted by 213 Kindle customers -
But in business, like they say, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. So I mind my business and I don’t apologize for it.
Highlighted by 133 Kindle customers -
He knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your terms.
Highlighted by 129 Kindle customers -
Competition pushes you to become your best self, and in the end it tells you where you stand.
Highlighted by 117 Kindle customers -
Art elevates and refines and transforms experience. And sometimes it just fucks with you for the fun of it.
Highlighted by 113 Kindle customers -
The real bullshit is when you act like you don’t have contradictions inside you, that you’re so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.
Highlighted by 113 Kindle customers -
If the price is life, then you better get what you paid for. There’s an equal and opposite relationship between balling and falling.
Highlighted by 89 Kindle customers -
To tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie. To tell the story of the pain without telling the story of the rewards—the money, the girls, the excitement—is a different kind of evasion. To talk about killing niggas dead without talking about waking up in the middle of the night from a dream about the friend you watched die, or not getting to sleep in the first place because you’re so paranoid from the work you’re doing, is a lie so deep it’s criminal.
Highlighted by 85 Kindle customers -
It’s hard to beat the entertainment value of people who deliberately misunderstand the world, people dying to be insulted, running around looking for a bullet to get in front of.
Highlighted by 84 Kindle customers -
I love metaphors, and for me hustling is the ultimate metaphor for the basic human struggles: the struggle to survive and resist, the struggle to win and to make sense of it all.
Highlighted by 78 Kindle customers
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Words and Music: Our Favorite 60 Music Books (Pitchfork). (authoritative list)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Country: USA
Publication Date: November 16, 2010
ISBN: 978-1400068920
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Country: USA
Publication Date: November 16, 2010
ISBN: 978-1400068920
Page Count: 336
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 782.421649092
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