Jay-Z Doesn’t Have Much To Give You

Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music and musical topics I’ve been fixated on recently.

For the longest time I complained that rap music wasn’t getting the Hollywood documentary treatment it deserved. While I’ve enjoyed experimental, in-depth docs for The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and of course, Bob Dylan, I felt that this kind of serious, prestigious treatment should’ve been given to our best rappers. And for the most part, over the last couple years, we’ve started getting that: an astounding docuseries on 2pac and Afeni Shakur, a documentary on the Notorious B.I.G. using home video footage never seen before, an extensive, long-gestating documentary of Kanye throughout his descent into madness, and now an 8-part series about Jay-Z on HBO, shot by Bradford fuckin’ Young. And you know what, I’m still complaining.