If you haven’t read Zadie Smith’s illuminating, thoughtful piece on Jay-Z in the New York Times, you really should. It does an admirable job of laying out Jay-Z’s place in society, as a rapper, a business mogul and as a cultural and social figure, discussing everything from the Jiggaman’s opinions on the Occupy Wall Street movement to his thoughts on Odd Future. But the most revelatory part—for fellow HBO fans, anyway—comes with a conversation with 50 Cent that Jay relays to Smith, using an analogy from the show The Wire to relate to ’00s hip-hop:
[His] persona is cool, calm, almost frustratingly self-controlled: “Yeah, 50 Cent told me that one time. He said: ‘You got me looking like Barksdale’ ” — the hot-blooded drug kingpin from HBO’s “The Wire” — “and you get to be Stringer Bell!” — Barksdale’s levelheaded partner.
It’s not a bad comparison at all, down to the fact that Avon Barksdale (played by Wood Harris) and 50 even share a weird sort of facial similarity. 50 was the guy who insisted on maintaining his street cred, repping for them corners, and was ultimately left behind, while Jay was the guy who realized that this here game was about more than just posturing, went behind the scenes, and (as 50 Cent himself would say) watched the money pile up. Hopefully their respective endings will be a little different, though. (Sorry, minor spoiler alert.)
The post 50 Cent and Jay-Z: Just Like Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell appeared first on Popdust.
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