Key Takeaways
- JAŸ-Z In 8 is an eight-part HBO Max docuseries in which Jay-Z and Rick Rubin revisit more than 25 songs while unpacking his life, lyrics, and 30-year career.
- The first two episodes reveal that “The Dynasty” intro is Jay’s favorite opener, his mother introduced him to rap through “King Tim III,” and Jaz-O’s $400,000 EMI deal showed him rap could become a business.
- Jay also recalls planning to quit after Reasonable Doubt, regretting The Black Album rollout, developing his “freeplay” sessions, and cutting Biggie’s California line from “Brooklyn’s Finest” to avoid the East Coast–West Coast feud.
"Let's step into the light."
These words, from music producer turned quasi content creator, Rick Rubin, are the first thing you hear in JAŸ-Z In 8, a new eight-part docuseries premiering on HBO Max on Friday, September 18.
It's called a "docuseries," but it's really more of a podcast. The entire series, which spans more than seven hours and will air two episodes every Friday for four weeks, features the music legend at a table with Rubin, who not only is the director but plays the role of layman's guide for the audience while Hov does the reflecting.
Guiding the conversation is Jay-Z's catalog—the two run through over 25 songs from his 30-year career. There are some songs you'd expect to find, like "Where I'm From," "Can't Knock the Hustle," and "99 Problems." But there are also some true wildcards, including "Don't You Know"—a real deep cut from the Paid in Full soundtrack—and Kanye West's Donda track "Jail."
Outside of music he's released, this is the most personal we've seen Jay, who weaves tales from his childhood with philosophical musings about transitioning from the streets to corporate living and Genius-level breakdowns of his famous lines. Yes, there are cringe moments; like when Jay over-explains a pretty obvious verse or metaphor, or when he takes a couple of beats to define "no cap" or explains what food stamps are.
But this is a mostly rewarding series, one that works best when Hov gets out of motivational guru mode and starts telling stories—like being in the studio with Scarface when he recorded his memorable "Can't Be Life" verse, or hanging out with The Notorious B.I.G. before he died, or the real-life story that made up the final verse of "Allure."
With the series debuting tonight, here's a preview of what to expect. Here are the eight most interesting things we learned from the first two episodes JAŸ-Z In 8.
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The Dynasty intro is Jay’s favorite intro
Fittingly, the first song they play is The Dynasty intro, which many Jay-Z fans consider the best opening song of his career. You know who agrees? Hov himself—who, in the midst of explaining the messaging, casually admits it's his favorite of his intros.
The conversation around this song starts the series well; Hov is game to break down the track, and he features a mix of generally cool details—like how the "psalm" line is a reference to Biggie and Junior M.A.F.I.A., who all had the same religious scripture tattooed on their arms—and funny quips, like when he mentioned he wore durags at this time, despite the fact he didn't have waves.
The first rap record Jay-Z heard was “King Tim III (Personality Jock)”
In the first episode, Jay really broke down his mother Gloria Carter’s love for music and how it affected him. He mentioned that her massive record collection was easily the most valuable thing they had in their house. But also that their home was the hub for good times. "Everyone would come to our house to party ... I remember our house being a house of sports and music," he said at one point.
One cool deet was when Jay talked about the first time he heard a rap song: it was the Fatback Band's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)," which was released a couple of months before Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" came out. This was a record that, of course, his mother owned.
He realized rap could be a business when he saw Jaz-O collect a $400,000 check
Jay-Z started rapping and writing when he was nine years old.
As he got older, and started to hit the streets, going out to Trenton, New Jersey to hustle, making raps got deprioritized. But even before he left for Trenton, he had already met Jaz-O, a talented rapper from his projects, Marcy, who was making noise—so much so that by '88 he got a recording contract. Jay talks about seeing the business potential in rap when Jaz-O signed a recording contract for $400,000 with EMI. "When he told me, I was like, 'What? $400,000 to do this, to rap?'" He put that kind of money in proper context when he said, "There's legends in the streets that people celebrate for being kingpins that never seen $400,000 ... for sure."
Jay-Z wanted to drop one album and then become a businessman
Jay speaks about those early years of being a rapper. He says he almost had to hide the fact that he wanted to rap, saying, "Rappers were pulling up in turtle tops and minivans, and we was coming with 4Runners and Lexuses and Acuras. You want to do that? We already doing this? That seems like a step backwards."
But the more telling part is how he viewed his own artistic career. It was well known he wanted to drop Reasonable Doubt and quit. But here he admits he hated being an artist, and that his goal was to one-and-done it and then become a "Russell Simmons" type, saying, "I didn't love being an artist ... I didn't like shooting videos, didn't like doing interviews. I didn't like speaking."
Obviously, he'd change his mind—and, you know what, thank God he did.
He always waits until the last minute to rehearse
Talking through his process, Jay locked into how his live show changed over the years; he admits that after the Unplugged show with the Roots in 2001, he never went back to performing with a DJ and would only do shows with a live band from then on. But he's also particular about prep; Jay claims that you're typically supposed to start rehearsing a month out from a show, but he always saves it for the last minute, saying, "If I know it too much, I check out—my mind wanders." He added that for Unplugged, the first time they rehearsed was the day before the performance.
Jay has regrets about how he rolled out The Black Album
Rick starts off the second episode of the docuseries by playing "What More Can I Say," which gets Jay reminiscing about The Black Album. In particular, Jay can't believe they didn't make "Encore" the first single and "What More Can I Say" the album closer. Jay talks about music executive Kevin Liles and engineer Young Guru's less-than-rapturous response to "Encore," which put a seed of doubt in his mind—so that by the time he's ready to give Funkmaster Flex music to play, he only gives him "P.S.A.," not "P.S.A." and "Encore" like he'd planned. The first single from The Black Album ended up, of course, being the Neptunes-produced "Change Clothes." That song was a top-10 hit ... so everything worked out for the best.
He would do this "freeplay" session to get bars off
Jay also talked about what inspired "What More Can I Say." The song famously features the rapper rhyming until the beat gives out. It came out of a ritual he used to do where he'd put a beat on, everyone would run to the studio to watch, and Jay would dump all the rhymes stuck in his head that no one had heard. They called it "Freeplay," and Jay would often have so many raps, and rap so much, that the beat would cut off and he would still be spitting. Does anyone have video of one of these?
Jay-Z cut a line about California Biggie had in "Brooklyn's Finest"
Really the best part of episode two focuses on Jay's relationship with Biggie and how it developed.
Jay talks about the two of them really clicking after recording "Brooklyn's Finest"—going to see The Kings of Comedy together afterward, Biggie wanting them to both move to Atlanta and get houses together, and the jokes the two shared.
Jay actually talked very granularly about the making of "Brooklyn's Finest," from the rap patterns to how the beat came about—it started when Jay was riding around listening to Ohio Players’ “Ecstasy” and had Dame tell Clark Kent to cut it up. According to Jay, Biggie originally had a line in his verse — "I'm warning ya, most hated in Carolina" — that Jay cut because he didn't want to get caught up in the East Coast/West Coast beef.
