"Never Change"

A highly underrated track from the quintessential Jay album, "The Blueprint." Features a pre-fame Kanye West. Was just listening to this today and one of the verses caught me:

"we keep weed to smoke/
we all fish, better teach ya folk/
give em money to eat, then next week he's broke.
cause when you sleep, he’s reaching for your throat/
word on the street, you reap what you sow"

There's a lot I like about this.

Exhibit A: It exudes the dynamic between "the sacred and the profane" that Cornel West ascribes to Blues. The Biblical allusion "you reap what you sow" right after he talks about smokin weed. And more specifically, right after he talks about "we" smokin weed. That's one of my favorite aspects of rap: that it speaks collectively. So that when Jay does somethin, its because thats what people do; He just happens to do it better than everyone else. If I had to describe the one idea that encapsulates Jay's style, that's it. And what's great about that is that it is both simple and blameless: you would do this too if you could, but you can't. at least not like me. I'm peerless and innocent at the same time. so forgive me my success.

I also like the idea of the social imperative of collective liberation. You can see that idea expressed as: "if you don't teach people to help themselves, they're not gonna have shit. if they don't have shit, they're not gonna be happy. if they're not happy, then they gonna come for you, as someone who does have shit. so it's in your best interest to help them help themselves."

This reminds me of a recent exchange I had with Tej where this quote came up:
"If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." -Lila Watson
I think that's put more optimistically than Jay puts it, but the idea is the same. MLK's "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Finally, I love the use of the ancient Chinese proverb "teach a man to fish" in the context of the "word on the street." It just speaks to the universality of classic wisdom/common sense, and the philosophy you can sometimes hear in rappers if you keep listenin past "weed to smoke."