Day After Day #225: 99 Problems

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

99 Problems (2003)

Occasionally when I have to show ID to get into a club to see a band, the bouncer will see my first name and middle initial and say, "Jay Z, huh?" And I'll reply, "Yeah, I was the original Jay Z," because I'm two years older than the rapper. Of course, his name is really Shawn Carter, but there's no debate who the more famous Jay-Z is. 

Jay-Z would be famous enough if he was only known for his music, but the guy has become a billionaire thanks to his business ventures, including Rocawear, Roc Nation and Tidal. Oh, and he's married to Beyonce. 

Born and raised in NYC, Jay-Z began his rap career in the late '80s, appearing on recordings by Jaz-O and Big Daddy Kane. He started his own indie label, Roc-A-Fella Records and then got a distribution deal with Priority Record and released his debut Reasonable Doubt in 1996. It hit #23 on the Billboard 200 and fared well with critics. Jay-Z then got a deal with Def Jam and released In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life, scoring hits with "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" and "Can I Get A..."

Jay-Z kept releasing albums and scoring big hits, in addition to collabs with Mariah Carey and Beyonce. He released The Black Album, his eighth, in November 2003 and held a "retirement party" at Madison Square Garden a few weeks later. He was advertising the tour as his last one and the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. The first two singles, "Change Clothes" and "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" went top 10, but it was the third single that really connected with me.

"99 Problems" is a loud, aggressive banger that was instantly iconic, but I had no idea that it was inspired by an Ice-T song from 1993. That song was focused on sexual conquests, but Jay-Z focuses on different problems, even though he used the same hook as Ice-T, "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one."

The song was produced by Rick Rubin, who provided a few of his hip-hop standbys: a big guitar riff and a stripped-down beat, using samples from Mountain, Wilson Pickett and the massive drums from Billy Squier's "The Big Beat" (the last of which had been used on another 2003 hip hop track, Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp").

The second verse of Jay-Z's song got the most attention because it's reportedly based on a real-life traffic stop that the rapper dealt with a decade earlier. He was pulled over in New Jersey while carrying cocaine in a secret compartment in his sunroof. He refused to let police search the car and they called for drug-sniffing dogs, but the K-9 officer never showed and he was allowed to leave. As Jay-Z was driving away, the K-9 car passed him in the opposite direction.

"The year's '94 and my trunk is raw/In my rearview mirror is the motherfucking law/I got two choices  ya'll, pull over the car or/Bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor/Now I ain't trying to see no highway chase with Jake/Plus I got a few dollars so I can fight the case/So I pull over to the side road/I heard, 'Son, do you know why I'm stopping you for?'/'Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low/Do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don't know'/'Well, you was doing 55 in a 54/License and registration and step out of the car/Are you carrying a weapon on you, I know a lot of you are'/I ain't stepping out of shit, all my papers legit/'Well do you mind if I look around the car a bit?'/'Well, my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back/And I know my rights so you goin' to need a warrant for that'/'Aren't you sharp as a tack? You some type of lawyer or something?/Somebody important or something?'/'Well I ain'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 K-9 come'/I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one, hit me."

The song became a cultural touchpoint, so much so that a legal professor wrote an article analyzing the second verse and what it teaches us about the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution in terms of search and seizure and racial profiling. The video, directed by Mark Romanek (although Quentin Tarantino was originally considered for the job), features guest appearances from Rubin and actor Vincent Gallo and ends with Jay-Z getting shot at the end. On MTV, every airing of the video had an introduction by VJ John Norris explaining why the network was allowing such a violent scene to air.

The song didn't chart as high as the other singles from The Black Album, going to #30 on the Hot 100, but won Best Rap Solo Performance at the 47th Grammy Awards and the video won multiple awards at the MTV Video Music Awards. 

When Danger Mouse released The Grey Album, his mashup of Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' White Album, he remixed "99 Problems" with samples from "Helter Skelter" (see below). It's pretty great. The song was also remixed with Linkin Park on the collaborative EP Collision Course. Ice-T's metal band Body Count later combined the lyrics from his "99 Problems" with the guitar riff from Jay-Z's song for "99 Problems BC."

Jay-Z released three more albums that decade and two in the 2010s. His last album was 2017's 4:44. These days, he seems to be content to stay behind the scenes, collecting the profits from his various businesses and watching his wife dominate the music industry. It's safe to say Jay-Z probably doesn't have 99 problems anymore.

Day After Day #34: It's Tricky

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

It's Tricky (1986)

When it comes to influential hip hop acts, you can't get more influential than Run-DMC. Sure, there were other artists who broke ground before them, but the trio from Hollis, Queens broke down all sorts of barriers: they were the first group to have a gold record, the first to go platinum, the first to go multi-platinum. They were the first to get aired on MTV, be on the cover of Rolling Stone, play Live Aid, get nominated for a Grammy. 

With the release of their third album, Raising Hell, in May 1986, Run-DMC made more history. They covered Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" by teaming up with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and the resulting video was a monster hit. The summer of '86 was all about "Walk This Way": the song was everywhere and it opened the door for rap to cross over to a mass audience. Not only did the song turn Run-DMC into superstars, it resurrected the flagging career of Aerosmith (we can debate elsewhere whether that was a good thing). 

I was familiar with Run-DMC thanks to "King of Rock" from the 1985 album of the same name; the video featuring Larry "Bud" Melman of Late Night with David Letterman fame used to play on V66, a Boston area video channel that I was able to get a fuzzy signal of up in southern New Hampshire. The song featured the rappers backed up by a full band, including the great Eddie Martinez on lead guitar. 

By late '86, Run-DMC and a new act called the Beastie Boys were all over the radio and MTV with rap-rock bangers. I was a sophomore at UNH and we were blasting both acts in our dorm rooms. A particular favorite was Run-DMC's "It's Tricky," which was the fourth single on Raising Hell. 

The song wasn't a huge hit (#57 on the Billboard 100) but it was amazing, featuring rappers Run and DMC trading verses and generally just kicking ass. The song sampled the riff from the Knack's "My Sharona" and copied the vocal structure of Toni Basil's "Mickey" and turned it all into a thunderous anthem. The video featured Penn and Teller as street hustlers ripping off people with three-card Monte games before Run-DMC swoops in to the save the day, sort of.

The song talks about the challenges of fame and staying on top of the rap game. "In New York the people talk and try to make us rhyme/They really (hawk) but we just (walk) because we have no time/And in the city it's a pity cause we just can't hide/Tinted windows don't mean nothing, they know who's inside."

Producer Rick Rubin was a big rock and metal fan and he was able to skillfully combine heavier guitar-oriented parts into rap songs to appeal to wider audiences. This was when the rules about sampling weren't set in stone yet and rap acts just cavalierly sampled whatever they felt like without paying. The Knack sued the band two decades later and the case was settled; now the writing credits include Doug Fieger and Berton Averre of the Knack as well.

"It's Tricky" has since been used in countless movies, TV shows and videogames. In 1998, producer Jason Nevins remixed the song and the song went to #1 on the UK Singles Chart.

Even now, nearly 40 years later, "It's Tricky" resonates and reverberates to a time when a bunch of 19-year-olds had nothing better to do on a Friday night but blast it at ear-splitting volume and recite every line.