Jay-Z interview in the Guardian Weekend

Great feature on Shawn Carter in the Guardian Weekend today.


Here's three things I found out about Jigga Man from Simon Hattenstone's* interview:

- "He was nicknamed Jay-Z, a riff on jazzy and Brooklyn's J/Z subway"

- "At 12, he shot his older brother Eric in the shoulder for stealing his ring"

- "There's a seven-week Jay-Z course at New York University at the moment"

But the one thing that I already knew that this article confirmed is that Jay-Z is just a seriously cool guy.



* I worked with Simon once, years ago. I was doing Bryan Adams' press and the Guardian did an interview with him. I jokingly referred to Bryan Adams as "the big BA" on the phone to Simon - what I thought was a throwaway comment to a writer who was unlikely to take Adams seriously, but to my consternation that comment made it into the feature, where Simon asserted that staff at the record label refer to Bryan Adams as "the big BA". Jesus. Any PR worth their salt knows that you never, repeat NEVER, want to become part of the story. And if you do, you're an idiot.