SOHH ON THE SCENE

Last night VH1 held the taping of "Storytellers: Jay-Z: Life of an American Gangster" at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. If you’re not familiar with the show, “Storytellers” is an hour-long series which features intimate musical performances and the first-hand stories behind the artist’s songs. Basically that means that those of us in attendance got to see Jay (and a 12 piece band) perform 9 brand new songs from his upcoming release American Gangster.

Naturally, the people at VH1 were really strict about cameras and cell phones so while I can’t show you any pics I can give you a play by play of the music and the visuals.

Before Jigga took the stage the producers at VH1 did a lot of shuffling around of audience members, making sure seats were filled in and coaching the crowd on how to be loud and energetic. Then we had to shoot a few cutaways, which are shots of the audience applauding that they’ll edit in later.

Finally, Jay made his grand entrance to the intro of the album wearing a black jacket with rhinestones on the back. With his black on black Yankee fitted pulled down low he announced that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that we were going to get to see him perform new songs from the album. The bad news was that “I gotta talk ya’ll through it,” which actually wasn’t bad news at all since I always enjoy hearing the artist’s inspiration.

As I’m sure you already know American Gangster is a concept album based on emotions Jay pulled from the upcoming movie with Denzel, Common and TI. Jay explained that the album is composed of three separate acts, the genesis, the rise and the demise of a gangster.

The first full song that he got into was “Pray” in which he rhymes from the perspective of a younger version of himself looking into the game. They had dope stained glass windows and black and white gangsters projected on the screens behind him.

Before performing “American Dreamin',” Jay encouraged everyone to close their eyes and imagine themselves sitting around with their boys in somebody’s basement dreaming about the future. For anyone worried that Jay has fallen off, by the second song it was clear that he is still slick like a gato.

“Survive in drought/ I wish you well/ How sick am I?/ I wish you health/ I wish you wheels/ I wish you wealth/ I wish you insight so you can see for yourself.”

You might want to go back and reread that one, I'll wait. Ok, next Jay-Z performed “Roc Boys” which shows the celebration after you make it to the top of the game. The horn players projected in the back perfectly complimented the horns in this song.

“Sweet” is supposed to represent the hangover after the celebration, when the reality of your position in the game sets in. The line in this song that stuck out to me was:

“Not always right but I’m always real. That’s how I sleep at night.”

Interesting…

Jay then performed “I Know,” a song about addiction to the game and “Party Life.” He insisted on having red lights like his momma used to have for that track which features more classic lines like these:

“I sport fly sh*t I should win an Espy,”

“please, it’s no equals/ Ya boy’s off the wall these other n*ggas Tito”

Get it?

Finally, “Fallin’” is about the demise of the gangster. Sometime around the second half of the set I became aware that Beyonce the fiancé (or whatever) was sitting behind me next to a big old bodyguard. She was all smiles throughout the show but when Jay-Z performed the bonus song “Blue Magic” she actually jumped up and started dancing. It was cute. Overall, it was definitely a great way to first hear (most of) the album. You should definitely check out “Storytellers” when it airs.