A Close Analysis of Jay-Z's "Lost Ones"

Because I Can

Assessments of hip-hop lyrics privilege (as the comp-lit kids say) three things in general, with a fourth occasionally added by backpackers:

• Realness, as expressed in the number of illegal acts or laments for the illegal acts others perform that one can fit into a verse
• Number of syllables one can cram into a line
• Funny and shocking punning and wordplay
• "Positivity," in the Native Tongues terminology

And those three/four things have brought hip-hop to the glorious, world-beating status it enjoys today. However, at times, other means of lyrical organization can be just as effective in delivering devastating hip-hop lyricism. Today we will examine a thoroughly unusual (for hip-hop) method employed by Jay-Z (aka Young Hov, Hova, Shawn Carter, etc.) in the current hit single "Lost Ones."

The single comes to us from his new album Kingdom Come, which has been almost universally pooped on by the hip-hop community, with even the semi-positive reviews apologizing for the fact that it fails to touch the greatness of Jay's best work. This it undoubtedly does. Nevertheless, there are things on this album that you can really sink your teeth into, like a weirdly gripping corporate existentialism ("Beach Chair"), songs that seem like they should be R&B songs but then Jay starts rapping and takes them over ("Do You Wanna Ride," "Hollywood"), and some seriously carnivorous rhyming (the title track, "Dig a Hole"). There's also "Lost Ones," which I can't stop listening to, and here's why.

Before we go further, here's the text we'll be analyzing, the second verse of the song:

I don't think it's meant to be, be

But she loves her work more than she does me

And honestly, at twenty-three

I would probably love my work more than I did she

So, we, ain't we

It's me, and her

'Cause what she prefers over me is work

And that's where we differ

So I have to give her

Free time even if it hurts

So breathe, mami, it's deserved

You've been put on this earth to be

All you can be, like the reserves

And me? My time in this army is served

So I have to allow she, her time to serve

The time's now for her

In time she'll mature

And maybe we can be we again like we were

Finally, my time's too short to share

And to ask her now, it ain't fair

So yeah, she lost one

[Chorus - sung by Chrisette Michele]

Lose one, let go to get one

Left one, lose some to win some [Oh yeah, she lost one]

Story of our champion, sorry I'm a champion

You lost one

Speculation abounds that this verse discusses Jay's relationship with Beyonce, which I.A. Richards would tell us is irrelevant to the present analysis but does give me an excuse to run a photo of Beyonce. It also gives purpose to the repetition of "be" in the first line, since that line can then be read as the beginning of a second-person address (to "B," Beyonce's nickname) before he drops the third-person pronoun in the second line.

Notes that are helpful to the reader include that Jay strategically mispronounces a couple words: "differ" sounds like "defer," and the second syllable of "mature" sounds like the first syllable in "turban." Also, because Jay-Z is from Brooklyn, the concluding consonants of words like "work" and "served" are nearly inaudible compared to your typical pronunciation. (If you don't believe me, you can RealPlayer the song here.) Knowing this, here is the entire list of sounds rhymed in this verse:

"ee"

"err"

"air"

Look at how they're organized. The section at the beginning bursts with these "ee" sounds: "be," "me," "honestly," etc. The first time Jay introduces the idea of separation, it's "me and her," and the "err" rhyme drops at the end of the line - an earthbound consonant after the giddy vowel. Inevitably, "her" gets rhymed (after another "me") with "work," the word that introduced the "err" rhyme to the verse earlier. From this point, these two sounds battle it out for domination, with the "err" sound getting the best of it. "Be all you can be, like the reserves" gets tugged back to the "err" rhyme that represents separation. Similarly, "me, my time in this army is served" has two interior "ee" sounds and one decisive "err" sound.

Hov repeats some words fairly obsessively, but this gives the lyrics themselves a trapped feeling, kind of like when you're dealing with an essentially insoluble dilemma. Like the situation the words are describing! Jay's halting flow magnifies the dilemma — while skillfully riding the beat, he manages to give the impression that he has had some emotional difficulty reaching his conclusions. (His patented whispery-rapping style also helps.)

The verse climaxes at "maybe we can be we again like we were," three "ee" rhymes falling down to earth. And the verse rounds off with a couplet that finally introduces a new rhyme sound, just like in Shakespeare. The resolution to the confusion that's trapped Jay in two rhyme sounds for a whole verse is itself built on the syllable "air," which has obvious resonances of its own. Then the chorus rhymes with nothing in the actual verse, putting us in yet a separate world of regret. Voila: how to build a lyrically compelling structure without sesquipedelian vocab, gunshots, jokes, or uplift.

I don't necessarily believe that the intentional fallacy is always a fallacy, but I do agree that it doesn't really matter whether Jay was thinking of the rhyme scheme in precisely these terms — the words have the same effect either way. Since the other two verses have similar structures, though (check it out!), I'm pretty sure Jay was thinking pretty hard about how to get the most expression out of simple, accessible language. With Dr. Dre's demure yet rugged piano chords beneath and Chrisette Michele's bluesy croon of the chorus up top, it makes for an irresistibly memorable song, from an album that has a few more surprises in store than a lot of folks have copped to.

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