Jay Z Raps About Success, Riches -- And Anxiety

If there's one thing about my black nerd life that typically means I don't fit in with mainstream ideas of what it means to be black, hip-hop is the usual suspect.

Despite the fact that I grew up in the same kind of neighborhoods that bred hip-hop, I'm not that big a fan.

Never really have been.

You won't find much rap in my music collection, which is overrun with so-called alternative rockers, classic R&B and jazz.

There is some rap in there, usual of the blerd persuasion: The Roots, Kanye West, Mos Def, Donald Glover/Childish Gambino,  and Talib Kweli, Public Enemy.

And, yes, Jay Z. I've been listening to Jay Z's latest album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, and while it's full of the bombastic bravado and Brooklyn-jerk vocals you expect from Hov, there's something else going on here. 


Anxiety. And lots of it.


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