Jay says that even songs like “Niggas in Paris”—the one with the Blades of Glory samples and the crazy-consumptive What’s Gucci, my nigga? What’s Louis, my killa? hook—or “Otis,” where Kanye actually refers to what they’re doing as “luxury rap,” effectively handing detractors a stick to beat the record with, come from a humble place. “It’s not, like, ‘We’re here! We’re balling harder than everybody,’ ” he says. “It’s like, ‘I’m shocked that we’re here.’ Still being amazed, still not being jaded. Having so much fun and then stopping and saying, ‘What are we doing here? How did we get here?’ ”
The key line, Jay says, is the one that goes If you escaped what I escaped, you’d be in Paris getting fucked up too.
“I’ve known so many people that didn’t make it,” he says. “Most people can look at a picture of the kids they grew up with and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah—Adam went away to Harvard.’ This is a whole different conversation.”