The artwork for the cover was released yesterday [TOP, November 2010] and features an image of Andy Warhol’s “Rorschach” [BOTTOM, 1984]. The book will “decode” 36 of Jay-Z's singles from his catalog.
On his book: "I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip-hop lyrics, not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC, are poetry if you look at them closely enough. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to.”
At $21, it is much more reasonably priced than most hardcover collectible books. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon, here.
