jay-z on fresh air

Set aside some time and listen to this entire interview of Jay-Z by Terry Gross. Or, at the very least, Instapaper the transcript.

PS – Did you know that Fresh Air is on tumblr?

On how he got the rights to Hard Knock Life:

GROSS: […] So you tell a great story in the book, about how you got the rights to use that song – to use the song from “Annie,” “Hard Knock Life.” Would you tell the story?

JAY-Z: Yeah. Well, I mean, we got the rights already, so this will be a bit late. So – because I exaggerated a touch, you know. And it’s typical, when you have to clear a song, you have to send it – a sampled song – you send it to the original writers, and they grant you permission, and you pay a fee for that permission.

You know – but some writers, their art is, for them, very important, so it has to be the right – sort of attitude, and the right take. And the emotion on the record has to fit, you know, what was originally intended. So we’re having difficulties clearing the sample. And I wrote a letter about how much it meant to me, you know, what it meant to me growing up, and how I went to like, a Broadway play, which was exaggeration. I saw it on TV and, you know, we got the rights…

GROSS: But let me stop you because in the book, you say…

JAY-Z: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: …that you told the big lie. In the book, you say that you…

JAY-Z: Yeah.

GROSS: …you made up that you entered an essay contest and in the essay, you wrote about the importance of seeing “Annie” on Broadway – which you’d never seen on Broadway, in fact.

JAY-Z: Yeah. Right.

GROSS: And, you know, all that it meant to you when you saw it on Broadway, and I think you said you like, won in the essay contest and so you…

JAY-Z: I didn’t want you to put the whole thing out there. I was trying to, you know, I could…

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: So in other words, you lied a little bit in order to get the rights.

JAY-Z: Yeah, it was, you know, it was a bad lie for a good reason.