99 Problems
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Throughout the song Jay-Z tells a story about dealing with a racist cop who wants to illegally search his car, dealing with rap critics, and dealing with an aggressor. While the song's meaning is widely debated, the chorus "If you're having girl problems, I feel bad for you son, I've got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one" was defined in Jay-Z's book entitled "decoded." Jay-Z wrote that in 1994 he was pulled over by police while carrying cocaine in a secret compartment in his sun roof. Jay-Z refused to let the police search the car and the police called for the drug sniffing dogs. However the dogs never showed and the police had to let Jay-Z go. Moments after he drove away he writes that he saw the police car with the dogs drive by." |
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"99 Problems" is the third single released by American rapper Jay-Z in 2004 from The Black Album. The chorus hook "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one" is taken from the Ice-T single "99 Problems" from the album Home Invasion (1993). The hook was coined during a conversation between Ice-T & Brother Marquis of Miami-based 2 Live Crew. Marquis later used the phrase in the 1996 2 Live Crew song "Table Dance".
In the song, Jay-Z tells a story about dealing with rap critics, racial profiling from a police officer who wants to search his car, and an aggressor. The song reached number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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