Cornel West, Jay-Z, Paul Holdengräber. Photo by Jori Klein.

​Jay-Z In Conversation With Cornel West and Paul Holdengräber
New York Public Library
Monday, November 15

[See our review of Decoded here.]

Usually, says tonight's distinguished moderator, NYPL director Paul Holdengräber, "my goal at the library is to make the lions roar." But this evening, we are informed, the library's agenda for the stone statues outside is a bit different. "My goal tonight"--big pause--"is to make the lions rap." And so together we stand in unison--us, the sold-out audience; Holdengräber, our bemused Belgian moderator; and, with him onstage, Princeton professor and Matrix veteran Cornel West--as Jay-Z bounds out to the opening strains of "December 4th," and embraces at last the role of rap world cool dad.

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​Yesterday, we brought you a brief but compelling excerpt from Decoded, the autobiography-slash-annotated-lyric-sheet of a book Jay-Z will be releasing through Spiegel & Grau on November 16th. Now comes word that one day prior, on Monday, November 15th, Shawn Carter will be at the New York Public Library, talking hustling, big business, and politics with Matrix actor and august Princeton professor Cornel West. Tickets go on sale today at noon, and will run you a steep $45-$58, though that price includes a copy of the book, which we can attest is handsome and glossy as all hell. The talk will also be simulcast live, because hey, it's Jay-Z. Get prepared for dude's dry wit by listening to him bury MC Hammer (who recently attempted to dis him, to hilarious effect) using only suave indifference:

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Minds meet at the merch table

​If ever the was a home team crowd for Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, far away from the slings and arrows of preppiness and the dark continent and the looming specter of book-learning, it was here, at the New York Public Library, where your bio can proudly boast that your second album, Contra, "includes no songs about commas." Seating Koenig opposite a novelist, John Wray (as opposed to say, a bitter, failed writer turned music critic), was an obvious and overdue set-up waiting to happen. So leave it to the NYPL's Young Lions--library supermembers in their 20s and 30s who, in exchange for a tax-deductable 350 bucks, get their own private events like this one--to finally make it happen, gathering the city's youthful book nerds for an evening devoted to "Music & Words."

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