JAŸ-Z in 8: Inside the Series

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin, Daniel Kaluuya, and Ayishat Akanbi discuss the creation of the documentary series JAŸ-Z in 8. They explore the tension between J

Key takeaways

• Rick Rubin sought to highlight Jay-Z's artistry because he felt the focus on his business success overshadowed his musical skill.
• Jay-Z initially viewed his music career as a means to establish a business empire rather than an aspiration to be a permanent artist.

Main topics

• The making of JAŸ-Z in 8
• Jay-Z's artistry vs. business persona

Notable quotes

His art is lyrics. That's his art.

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep appreciation for the intersection of raw v

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:01) Tetragrammaton. Speaker 3 (0:25) There are so many Beatles documentaries, so many McCartney documentaries, and almost all of them seem to be about the same thing, either Beatlemania or songwriting, both of which great topics. But there's a whole other world, and I was interested in the musicianship aspect of it. And I couldn't find books or films about the Beatles as musicians, so that was the focus of 321. Having that experience, thinking, who's a popular artist who... may not be seen as they actually are. And I thought about Jay, because people think about Jay as a great businessman, executive, billionaire, married to Beyonce. I just thought it'd be really beautiful to show that artistry, because without the artistry, none of the other stuff happens. And I'm so happy he decided to do it. Speaker 4 (1:15) Yeah, especially because he doesn't really do many interviews. I don't feel like watching it, it occurred to me that I don't think I've ever heard him speak at such length before. Speaker 3 (1:24) I remember hearing that you wanted your first album to be your only album. Yeah. That was your original plan. Yeah. Tell Speaker 6 (1:31) me about that. I don't know where that thought came from, but it was serious for me. I had these goals. I have one record, it'll go gold. I see. And that'll be it. And then I'll have this company. I've always thought like a businessman. It was like I was fighting an artist. I didn't love being an artist. I didn't like shooting videos. I didn't like interviews. I didn't like speaking. I was pretty much introvert. This was the way I spoke. I would never talk like that if you were sitting around me. People that sat around me was like, go look it up. Everyone says he was so quiet. He never said anything. I would never talk like in those days. I would never have a conversation. Speaker 6 (2:16) You know, and it was part of the, you know, my job. You're not talking to people. Keep yourself sane. Stay in the shadows. You a hustler? You want to be on TV? That goes against everything. Who are you? There's no early footage of me. Speaker 6 (2:34) Would never let any cameras come around me. Film me? Oh no, we're gonna have a fight. Like there's gonna be a problem filming me. So everything that I was doing was counterintuitive to how I lived. And I didn't like it. the music business. I wanted to do it because I had a dream and I had a talent to do it, but I didn't want to be in. Yeah, you didn't Speaker 3 (2:59) aspire to be an artist. I Speaker 6 (3:01) didn't aspire to be an artist. Yeah. So I was like, I'm going to do this and then I'll have a company. Speaker 4 (3:10) Daniel, to some people, you and Rick linking up is a bit of an unlikely pairing. And so I wonder, what was it about your conversations or things that you share in common that made you think that you guys should actually work together? Speaker 5 (3:23) Then we happened to be hanging out, and then he said, I want to show you something. And then he showed it to me. And I was like, I liked it. These are my thoughts. And then he mentioned my Jay-Z thing and I was like, cool. He said it's eight hours long. So I was ready for eight hours. Then in by like three and a half, it was so dense. It was hard. It was like steep. But then I wrote some thoughts that I had about it. So I was like, oh, this and that and this and that and this. I remember he said verbatim, he was like. He said, I don't know what you're talking about, I think you do though. So why don't you do it? And then I was like, what do you mean? He said, you do it. And I was like, all right, cool, and then I did it. What's mad is that I just, I love music, so I get bored of modern music. There's no feeling in it. There's money in it. And then like, I just finished listening to Jay-Z chronologically just randomly. I was just like, just going to my favorite artists and listening chronologically. So yeah, it wasn't like, oh, let's work. It was just that kind of like, yeah, this idea. And I had thoughts about it. Then I just was invested. Speaker 4 (4:28) Yeah. And I think I share your sentiments, especially perhaps where rappers can sound, that there isn't. as much feeling as a lot of the rappers that I grew up on. Because I think that for a lot of people, Jay's always spoken about as one of the best to ever do it. But I think for a lot of modern rap listeners, that's not necessarily something that's apparent to them. They don't really understand why that is. And so, you know, rap is always something that I've considered to be like my first musical love. It introduced me to politics. It sparked my interest in social issues. I wonder, what does hip-hop maybe mean for the both of you? Speaker 3 (5:00) Well, it came along at a time I was going to school at NYU and some kids in school had mixtapes and there was no hip-hop on the radio. It was a totally underground form of music. same time as punk rock music. I was listening to more punk rock at the time. And I started listening to these tapes and it felt like, it feels just like punk rock to me. It had the same energy of young people, street level, something to say, saying it. It wasn't from the conservatory. And that spoke to me. And then when I went to NYU, I started going to hip hop clubs. It was one, Negril, which was a... reggae club six nights of the week and one night a week they had hip-hop and I would go to that every week, Tuesday nights. And at that time the only records that you could buy that were hip-hop really were for DJs. They would be 12-inch singles but very limited and none of them had the energy that I experienced going to the club. So as a fan I just wanted to make something that sounded more like what I heard at the club. Really like documentarian of hip hop. And those were the first Death Jam records. Speaker 4 (6:14) Daniel, what about you? What's your relationship with hip hop? Speaker 5 (6:17) I was the only boy in my household. So with more