What Would Jay-Z Do: Argue With Fools

Though he once offered lyrical advice to the contrary, Jay-Z sparred with various individuals amid his ascent—and watched several icons foolishly bestow their status on him by accident.

This is the first installment of the series “What Would Jay-Z Do?” He once said he’d give you $1 million worth of game for $9.99. I’m offering it for even more of a bargain: the price of a Substack subscription. And, as the author of the Jay-Z biography Empire State of Mind, I know a thing or two about the guy. Enjoy!

“A wise man told me, ‘Don’t argue with fools, ‘cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who,’” Jay-Z once rapped. At various points during his rise, he used the parable to his advantage—not by arguing with fools, but by picking fights with icons foolish enough to fall into his trap. Allow me to explain his strategy and how he put it to work.

It’s important to remember that Jay-Z wasn’t always his current self, the billionaire mogul husband of Beyoncé. After making his move from the underworld to the music world, he released his 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt, to immense critical acclaim but limited commercial success. And though he was still making a name for himself, he didn’t hesitate to come after anybody—and everybody—in his lyrics.

On his Notorious B.I.G. collaboration “22 Two’s,” Jay-Z called out just about every possible group of people. To put it a bit more gently than he did: men, women, ruffians, posers, and anyone excessively infatuated with California. Tupac Shakur, possibly taking that last bit personally, responded by mocking and lyrically attacking Jay-Z in “Bomb First,” released two months after Shakur’s death in 1996.

The attention from Shakur, arguably the most famous rapper to walk the Earth, helped put Jay-Z on the map. We may never know if Jay-Z was deliberately luring his West Coast rivals into a war of words, but after watching Shakur take the bait, it’s clear Jay-Z saw the value of the strategy.

Flash forward half a decade. Jay-Z had released five albums in five years, all of them eventually going platinum, including Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life, the bestselling record of his career. His sales were finally outpacing the number of glowing reviews he received, perhaps by too much. So, to boost one or the other (or both), he picked a fight with Nas by offering up a throwaway line: “Ask Nas, he don’t want it with Hov—no!”