't passed the bar, but I know a little bit
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit
"Well, we'll see how smart you are when the K9 come"
I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one; hit me!
That hook is what in rap gets called interpolation and in your high school poetry class would be called allusion: Jay Z did not write it. Rather, Ice-T did, a decade earlier, for his song of the same name. That song, however, is not about a racist cop wrongly stopping a black man who wasn't speeding ("55 in a 54") but is, actually, a drug dealer. No, it's about the bitches Ice-T fucks—an over-the-top party song, the song you could imagine our sitting president humming to himself as he grabs bitches by the pussy—"locker-room talk."
Setting aside the ugly ironies here (intended) as being not central to our discussion, Jay Z's song is not about women. Rather, the bitch in his chorus is a drug-sniffing hound (the "K9") who, it turns out, will not be a problem for the narrator, because the trooper lets the dealer roll off. Jay Z's appropriation of the Ice-T hook, then, is meant to entertain the rap aficionado with its nod to an elder; to delight the active listener with a playful use of a word that rappers regularly get called out for using and that, here, he's using differently; and to make those who'll single out this song as misogynistic reexamine their reflex to hold rap responsible for lowering the level of rhetoric by themselves having to consider the rhetorical sophistication of rap artists.
As Jay Z writes in Decoded, " '99 Problems' is a good song to use to talk about the difference between the art of rap and the artlessness of some of its critics. It's a song that takes real events and reimagines them. It's a narrative with a purposefully ambiguous ending. And the hook itself . . . is a joke, bait for lazy critics."
THE BRUSH HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD: A GENEALOGY
In the behind-the-scenes video, we see superproducer Timbaland, a very large, very jolly fellow, in the studio with Jay Z. Like traveling salesmen of yore, arrived with their trunks of wares, Timbaland has come to offer Jay Z beats. This is a central role in the hip-hop process. Here, Timbaland, drinking what remains of a pink beverage from a gallon jug he hoists like it is not a gallon jug, sits at a keyboard and plays Jay Z a succession of beats, instrumental tracks with different feels, skeletons for possible songs, should they ignite the creativity of their auditor. Jay Z listens intently, in the manner of someone tasting a '59 Chateau Margaux. He evaluates, his expression becoming that of a man spitting in a bucket. One of the beats you recognize: It will become "The Potion," by Ludacris. Another, too, is familiar: It will become "Come As You Are," by Brandy. Jay Z is being offered them first, and is unmoved.
But then Timbaland plays one more. It lasts for all of a second, an explosion of allurement. Timbaland presses pause. You recognize that explosion; it's that recognizable. He laughs; he is a good salesman; he has saved the best for last. Hook sunk, he yanks, hits play. Jay Z does not stare: Rather, he is a lighthouse, rounding on Timbaland with his blinding beam. He is not moving to the beat: Rather, he is a spring, sprung. Timbaland is moving, too, dancing, hands up, hands down, and then up, to his shoulders, then down, with a little motion on his upper chest, right below his shoulders, a—what would you call it?—a little brushing motion.
And across Jay Z's face there's a moment of recognition.
The beat becomes the basis for a song issued as a B-side to "99 Problems," a song called "Dirt off Your Shoulder." You know the video: Jay Z and a succession of women and men mime the brushing off of their shoulders. You know the hook:
If you feeling like a pimp
Nigga, go and brush your shoulders off
Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off
Niggas is crazy, baby, don't forget that boy told you
Get that dirt off your shoulder
You gotta get that dirt off your shoulder
How are we to interpret this gnomic injunction? How are we to understand the proper use of th