Jay-Z is one of my all-time heroes. Certainly parts of his story conflict with that of your typical role-model: as a high-school dropout he sold crack before he began his music career. But his ambition, work ethic, quest for perfection and sheer talent—never-mind his wild success—is inspiring.
If you know anything about hip-hop, you’ll know humility is scarce amongst rappers; but even Jay-Z is humble enough to admit that his magic is not just the product of his hard-work, persistence and skill.
I can’t explain it to y’all, man… They say you put the right artist with the right track in the studio, leave the door cracked, and let God in.
This reminds me of a lovely idea from Elizabeth Gilbert who spoke this year at TED about nurturing creativity.
Elizabeth believes—as too, she says, The Greeks and The Romans did—that true creativity cannot be engineered, but rather comes from some ungovernable or even “divine” source. She says that Socrates “believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar.”
Call it God, magic, fortune or simply the sum of the variables you cannot understand or control, but know that your very best work cannot be scheduled of produced on-demand. You’ve got to be patient, you’ve got to try and try again and you’ve got to let God in.
3 Comments
Hey guys, I caught your session at FOTB and I found it truly inspiring. I’ve been reading your blog since and after reading today’s (and watching Elizabeth’s talk) I just wanted to say thanks for providing a great source of inspiration.
Hope to hear you talk again sometime…and hopefully next time get the opportunity to buy you a beer afterwards. Cheers!
Posted by Stu Collett at 8:15 am on 8 October, 2009.
Good post and I agree with the sentiment but I am afraid the latest album from Jay-Z is pretty whack, still as I say, I like the thought behind it. Plus Jay live is an experience to be hold.
Posted by searchbrat at 10:28 pm on 15 October, 2009.
Truly inspiring stuff by Elizibeth Gilbert! She is so right you gotta let God In and when he does show up make sure you have a pen and paper or a tape recorder handy!
Posted by Justin McGurk at 5:22 pm on 19 November, 2009.