Jay-Z Tells Interview Mag About Meeting Eminem, Barack Obama

Jay-Z Tells Interview Mag About Meeting Eminem, Barack Obama
January 14, 2010 01:01:00 PM CST | by Andres Tardio

After the recent release of "On to the Next" as a single from last year's Blueprint 3, fans can expect to hear more from Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz. In fact, Beatz recently spoke on the "international" vibe of this forthcoming project. He also added that fans can expect more live instrumentation from Hova.

“It’s crazy," he told MTV during a recent interview. "I’m working on the intro right now, matter of fact. It’s stupid.”

Then, Swizz went on to add more regarding that "international" sound.

“We been talking about that international vibe since the last album but the sound changes. You got too many people trying to do too many things. They throw it off. I’m actually going out there doing the legwork, sitting there with the master composers, and we gonna pull this thing together.”

In other Jay-Z news, he recently sat down with Interview Magazine to speak with Elvis Mitchell. He opened up about his meetings with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, adding that it means more when taking his own background into concideration.

"It’s unbelievable because it’s so far away from where I come from. We were the kids who were ignored by every politician. We didn’t have the numbers, the vote, to put anybody in office, because no matter who was in the office, we didn’t think that it would affect change where we lived. So nobody went out and voted. For me, being with [President Barack] Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton ... it's just crazy. It's mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians — by America in general," he said.

He was also very candid about his relationship with other emcees, noting he listens to Rap thinking about what goes on behind the scenes and what rappers were going through in their lives to make them create their lines. He went on to discuss something he had never previously mentioned to the media or to Eminem regarding one of their studio sessions and how it allowed him to see more than what was presented in raps, what he called a "sad" reality of beef in Hip Hop.

"I never even told him this, but I remember that Eminem came into the studio when we made 'Moment of Clarity,' which he produced, on The Black Album. So here's Eminem. It's 2003, I think The Eminem Show had come out, and he was, like, the biggest rapper in the world — he sold, like, 20 million records worldwide or some ridiculous number. But when he came to the studio, I remember I hugged him and I could feel that he had on a bulletproof vest. I couldn't imagine being that successful. I mean, he's a guy who loves rap and wanted to be successful his whole career. Then he finally gets it, and there's this dark cloud over him. There’s this big beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule—and between real people, too—so he has to worry about that. He has to be afraid to walk around New York freely. I was like, 'Here it is. You’ve gotten everything you wanted, and now you’re a prisoner of your own fame.' That’s sad to me—that you have to walk around in a bulletproof vest after you’ve sold 20 million records. So, the point being, what I’m interested in is the thing under the thing. You can think you know where he was at when he said those raps, but I saw another level of it personally, and I found it sad."

Further into the interview, he adds more regarding his longtime associate Kanye West and his interruption of Taylor Swift, adding that he agreed with what was said but not the timing of the interruption.

"I just think the timing of what he did was wrong and that, of course, overshadowed everything. He believed that [Beyoncé's] 'Single Ladies' was a better video. I believed that. I think a lot of people believed that. You can't give someone Video of the Year if they don't win Best Female Video. I thought Best Female Video was something you won on the way to Video of the Year."

From HipHopDX.com

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.10438/title.jay-z-tells-interview-mag-about-meeting-eminem-barack-obama