Jay-Z Dissects His Lyrics in HBO's 8-Part Docuseries — SkimNews
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- "Jay-Z in 8" is an eight-part HBO docuseries directed and co-starred in by producer Rick Rubin, filmed in black-and-white at Paris' Palais Brongniart, with the first two episodes premiering Sept. 15 at 8 pm ET and two new episodes dropping each Friday.
- Jay-Z dissects songs cueing up his catalog "seemingly at random," reciting verses back to Rubin and unpacking double entendres like "I keep one eye open like CBS" — a network logo reference that phonetically sounds out "see BS."
- Variety's review highlights the rarity of the access — Jay-Z gave only one interview this year and zero in the prior few years — including that he originally wanted Mary J. Blige on "Empire State of Mind" before choosing Alicia Keys for the piano.
- Jay-Z reveals his Nas feud traces to the "Reasonable Doubt" sessions, when Nas failed to show for a scheduled collaboration, and that "Change Clothes" was the wrong first single from "Encore" while "Public Service Announcement (Interlude)" should have been held for a later project.
- The review critiques the series for skimming major personal terrain: "Kill Jay-Z," which touches on Solange's 2014 elevator attack, and his Kanye West collaboration "Jail" get surface-level treatment rather than the probing an outside interviewer might bring.
- Episodes range from 37 to 61 minutes, and Variety says a keener edit would have helped, as some final-episode song breakdowns add little beyond what's already on the records.
Why it matters: For a rapper who gave only one interview this year and none in the prior few, eight episodes of self-annotation is rare access — though the review argues the format favors exhaustive bar-by-bar exegesis over harder questions about the Solange incident and Kanye tensions, making it as much a missed opportunity as a gift to fans.
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