Amazon jay z empire state of mind works cited

His latest, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, is a meditation on loneliness and disconnection as it relates to the Internet era. It was only a matter of time before someone wrote a novel examining the psychological impacts of social media and Internet addiction on our lives, and that person (this month, anyway) is Jonathan Coe, a British novelist who deserves more attention on these shores. Relying on songs that Jay-Z wrote as entertainment, to sell, even in combination with interviews with people close to Jay-Z over the years, is a poor substitute for the man himself. Despite Greenburg's experience covering music and finance for Forbes since 2005, he simply cannot tell us what goes on behind closed doors or nondisclosure agreements. No matter how often Greenburg inserts lyrics from Jay's songs to reveal his innermost workings, Greenburg hasn't managed to peel back even the first layer of the rapper's motivations or intentions. I felt the absence of Jay-Z in this book acutely. Greenburg suggests that's why Jay would not consent to an interview for this book - he even says that's why Jay took his long-shelved autobiography, Decoded, off the shelf, rushed it to publication a couple months ahead of Greenburg's book and gave interviews all over the place to promote it (listen to our Fresh Air interview here). In the introduction to Empire State of Mind, Greenburg floats the idea that Jay-Z's business acumen is so sharp partly because when other people attempt to make money from his work (or even his persona), he insists on the biggest cut possible of their profit. Greenburg even suggests that Jay-Z's marriage to Beyonce is something of a corporate merger, and that any children the couple might have would allow both of them to move into more markets and make even more money. Carter is also very good at realizing when the brands he invests in or represents are at the top of the market and cashing out (see: Armandale Vodka, Roc-a-Wear). He ensures that his partnerships are as profitable as they can possibly be with savvy product placement and cross-promotional deals. According to author Zack O' Malley Greenburg, he invests in brands and then boosts their sales by dropping their names into his music. 1 records grace the Billboard charts than Elvis (second only to The Beatles), no longer makes all his money from rapping - and he hasn't for years.

The best-selling musician, who has had more No. вЂ“ Lynn Neary, NPR books and publishing correspondentД®mpire State Of Mind How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner OfficeД®mpire State of Mind tells the story of rapper Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter) and his rise from drug slinger to tape slinger and, later, to corporation runner. Though only 25, she writes with extraordinary insight about an inbred world that thrives on distrust and superstition but can also be elevated by the power of myth and the strength that comes from stories handed down from one generation to the next. But her understanding of the culture of her homeland is deeply ingrained. Obreht left Belgrade with her family at the age of 7 to escape that war. The relationship between Natalia and her grandfather anchors a story that encompasses both rural village life in the years during World War II as well as life in an unnamed city before during and after the civil war. If you are drawn to stories that are steeped in the real world, you will also find much to love in The Tiger's Wife. If you grew up reading fairy tales you will love this book. As Obreht follows her protagonist across borders that once did not exist into a country that was only recently enemy territory, she creates a vivid sense of the complexity of a region ravaged by civil war.

These stories are told against the backdrop of Natalia's own life. As she tries to find out more about his death, she learns more about his life through two fables: the story of the deathless man whom her grandfather claims to have encountered several times during his life, and the story of the Tiger's Wife, a richly imagined tale of his encounter with an escaped tiger that haunted the village where he grew up. When the novel opens, Natalia, a young doctor, learns that her beloved grandfather has died alone in a remote village. The book is set in a country presumed to be the former Yugoslavia and draws on the rich folk culture of that region. In The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht deftly weaves the past with the present, fantasy with reality and superstition with the cold hard facts of war and its aftermath. Interview with Tea Obreht: A Young Talent Takes On Folklore March 5, 2011

Amazon jay z empire state of mind works cited