What I Talk About When I Talk About Jay-Z: "99 Problems"

On my iPod, I have many, many songs of the indie-rock or alternative genre, with some more classic rock (as opposed to "classic" rock, a genre tag I despise because it seems to celebrate groundbreaking music by tagging it as unworthy of a youngster's time unless they want a history lesson) and other such songs from other genres. Perhaps the least well-represented genre (other than "singer-songwriter," which is odd because a lot of the music I listen to was penned by singers and/or songwriters, but I guess it was meant more for the James Taylor/Cat Stevens style of troubador) is rap, or at least it was initially. Growing up with it, via the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy, I felt like the inventiveness of the genre's early days had become lost amid the B-boy posturing and any old excuse to drop an F-bomb into the mix when a simple "Goddam" would've sufficed.

In order to get my iTunes account active, in August of 2008 (the same month I graduated from college and got my heart broken for the umpteenth time, though not in that order), I had to set it up via my brother's account, and let's just say our taste in music did not coalesce. Where he had Fall-Out Boy, I had Death Cab for Cutie, and so on. My mom had given me the iPod as a Christmas gift the year before, and I'd been content to play the games on there for only so long before it occurred to me that hey, this was meant to hold music. And so it was on one gray August day that my sister helped me set up the account, and I proceeded to delete most everything from my brother's/my account (don't worry, he was able to keep his music somehow, though I'm not sure of the specifics and leave that to my more techincally-minded peeps to ascertain), except for one song.

That song was Jay-Z's immortal "99 Problems (But a Bitch Ain't One)."

I was bowled over by the tune, which I'd heard before but only in edited versions on the radio, and was always fond of it. I like a good rap song, especially a good dirty one, and you didn't get dirtier than bitching about the cops, getting into fights that landed both you and your opponent in jail, and rap magazines using your black ass to sell copy. To be sure, I could not relate to any of these experiences, as a white kid from Bumfucksburg, South Carolina, but I could identify in Jay's story a sense of anti-authority rebellion that had appealed to me for a long time, since I read Catch-22 and heard John Mellencamp's "Authority Song" (you may laugh, but remember two things: Mellencamp was big in the Eighties, and the song kicks ass. Springsteen wishes he wrote that one).

Life throws you a lot of motherfucking curveballs; I've had jobs fall out from under me through no fault of my own, but I've lost jobs because I was a bit too loose with my views or eager to name names for my own amusement. In short, I've had more than 99 problems, and a lot of them have to do with things other than romance. Jay's swagger throughout the song is what I'd like to think I could feel like when dealing with all that life throws at me, though more often than not I've wanted to crawl into a fetal position and cry my eyes out. Rarely does this opportunity afford itself after you supposedly reach maturity, however, and the thing I've learned over the years is that no matter how many problems, or how often they seem insurmountable, life has a way of working itself out so that many times you wonder just what the hell it was you were bummed about that particular month or year or decade.

I kept "99 Problems" on my iPod, where it holds a revered status among my rap songs and indeed my entire collection. When "Empire State of Mind" came out, I got it too, and if I never buy another Jay-Z song it's not a big deal, I have the two best ones to listen to anytime life starts to give me hassles. I might not bust a grape in a fruit fight, but when the chips are down I like to think I could draw some strength from past problems and remember how these things too shall pass. For that, I owe Jay-Z some gratitude.