News

Read: GQ's 'Man Of The Year' Piece On Jay-Z

12:35 p.m. · November 14, 2011 · by Andrew Martin

GQ's "Men of the Year" issue for December is coming out soon -- or is it out now? where are my newstand readers at? -- and in case you're wondering, here are the men of 2011: Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon, Michael Fassbender, and Mila Kunis. But she's not a man! Anyway, the piece on Hov is online right now and it features some insight into his love for art and his joint album with Kanye West, Watch The Throne. Below you can read one of the feature's most interesting points, which offers an explanation of Hov and Yeezy's "Ni**as in Paris." Read the rest of the piece at GQ.

Jay says that even songs like "Niggas in Paris"—the one with the Blades of Glory samples and the crazy-consumptive What's Gucci, my nigga? What's Louis, my killa? hook—or "Otis," where Kanye actually refers to what they're doing as "luxury rap," effectively handing detractors a stick to beat the record with, come from a humble place. "It's not, like, 'We're here! We're balling harder than everybody,' " he says. "It's like, 'I'm shocked that we're here.' Still being amazed, still not being jaded. Having so much fun and then stopping and saying, 'What are we doing here? How did we get here?' "

The key line, Jay says, is the one that goes If you escaped what I escaped, you'd be in Paris getting fucked up too.

"I've known so many people that didn't make it," he says. "Most people can look at a picture of the kids they grew up with and it's like, 'Oh yeah—Adam went away to Harvard.' This is a whole different conversation."