Jay-Z’s Memoir Scheduled for November

Jay-Z’s autobiography, Decoded, is scheduled to be released on November 16th. The memoir will include interviews from Jay’s family, friends and the man himself. It’ll also touch on his upbringing in Brooklyn through present day (or at least close to it). This past June, Jay told Rolling Stone that he was hesitant about releasing the book, “It’s not anything I haven’t said in the past, in songs. It’s just more detailed. A song is three minutes long. A book doesn’t have to rhyme, and it has no time limit, so you can say exactly how everything went.”

The book is penned by Jay’s long-time friend, Dream Hampton. She discussed writing the book, back in January 2009, with Allhiphop.com. “I mean I didn’t know I could write a book until I wrote Jay’s book. It was hard. I thought it was going to be like a long article and it wasn’t, it was a f**king book. So you know, I was interviewing his mom. It was stuff that he didn’t know about his own parents’ marriage that came out in this book. So if Elliott does the book, I think that would be good because it won’t be in Jay’s voice. It’ll be more like a biography with access. I’m not mad at that at all. I just can’t get caught up. Like it’s not my lifetime goal to be a Hip-Hop biographer. I feel no way about it. I’d totally read it and I think it’s a smart move on his part to do something that’s not first person.”

Back in 1998, Hampton interviewed Jay and did an article in Vibe magazine. Here’s a snippet: “I was never a worker,” say Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. “And that’s not even being arrogant. I was just never a worker.” Jay, who made his fortune a decade before the release of his debut, 1996’s Reasonable Doubt, isn’t exactly forth-coming about his past. You half expect him to pat you down or check the hotel room smoke detector for cameras—and I’ve known him for a little while. We both knew and loved Big, and became friends because of him. “My situation—” He restarts, tensely, “I went out of town, not far, to Jersey. Me and my man. We was pioneering some shit. I was never around the Calvin Kleins, ’cause to be around them you would have to be under them. You weren’t going to be over them. That would have been conflict.”

I’m hoping we can expect similar insight in his memoir.