We always hear about white nepotism, but I see generational black wealth as something different. When JAY says, вЂњWe gonвЂ™ start a society within a society,вЂќ I imagine my parents, five siblings, aunties, and all the other black folks who had a hand in raising me expanding their excellence and dreams with old money that can stretch so long nobody that has to worry anymore.ДЄmerica milks black peopleвЂ™s consumer power while the structures in this country arenвЂ™t set up for us to economically thrive. The cultural and spiritual endowment of the people who came before me is immense and those riches alone have sustained me, but financially taking care of my family, now and in the future, really does keep me up at night. It may seem trivial, but that type of comfort spoke to the financial security that theyвЂ™d inherited and it was inspiring. I never experienced that - we moved a whole lot - but friends of mine had families who penetrated societyвЂ™s upper-mid echelons and they'd had the privilege of stability.

I want my children to know what itвЂ™s like to come back home to the bedrooms they grew up in. May our ground stay fertile - and the Starbucks on Eastern Parkway wash away. With a very appropriate sample of Marvin GayeвЂ™s вЂњMercy MeвЂќ and an angelic outro from falsetto-king The-Dream, JAYвЂ™s вЂњMarcy MeвЂќ is a graceful sonic salute to his home borough of Brooklyn. Dedicated to the cityвЂ™s southern borough, it's filled with quips about Old Brooklynв„ў (вЂњnot the new shit that feels like a spoofвЂќ), blocks that are virtually unrecognizable to longtime locals yet are now hotspots for real estate agents (Myrtle, Nostrand), and allusions to todayвЂ™s new school of rappers (вЂњhold the Uzi vertical, let that thing smokeвЂќ). As systematic and white-people-serving gentrification continues its attempts to erase BrooklynвЂ™s deeply rich black and brown history, вЂњMarcy MeвЂќ serves as JAY-ZвЂ™s reminder that, 20 years later, heвЂ™s still from Marcy, son, and there still ainвЂ™t nothing nice here. вЂњLive from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one/ Representing BK to the fullestвЂќ is a Biggie line that can almost surely be engraved on the tombstone of any true Kings County lifer - and now JAY-Z has further immortalized it on the intro to this three-minute lyrical miracle from 4:44. Backed by WonderвЂ™s harmonies, she recites, вЂњLove who you love/ Because life isn't guaranteed/ Smile.вЂќ GloriaвЂ™s moment in the sun and out of the shadows feels not just honest, but a key to understanding how a family heals and grows overtime. More notably, he reveals that his mother recently came out as lesbian, a fact that she later confirms herself in a moving poem.

'Love by itself is hollow.' The same thinking - that love itself needs the attention, devotion, and reassessment that living things require - is evident all over 4:44, but gets a special viewpoint on вЂњSmile.вЂќ Over a beat that chops up WonderвЂ™s classic anthem, JAY-Z raps about the power of good memories and triumphing over his adversaries. 'For love to be effective it has to be fed,' he said of the songвЂ™s inspiration during an interview in 2015. On a grey winterвЂ™s day in New York, Stevie Wonder wrote the iconic вЂњLoveвЂ™s In Need Of Love Today,вЂќ moved by the presence of his pregnant wife and some heady thoughts about love.

Jay z 444 hats