Here is a clip of a preacher playing a track from JayZ backwards. It seems to clearly say “666 murder murder Jesus”.
Does anyone know anything about this? What song is it? Do you think this is authentic? If so, do you think it was intentional or just a freakish occurance? I would imagine that if you listen to enough tracks backwards you would eventually find something offensive.
For the record, if it is true, I am of the “meh, big deal” camp, not the “JayZ must die camp”.
It’s not technically from a Jay-Z song, it’s from Danger Mouse’s Grey Album project. The track in question is Lucifer 9 (Interlude), a mashup of Jay-Z’s Lucifer track with the Beatles’ Revolution #9 and I’m So Tired.
In my mind, there’s no question that Danger Mouse intended the track to sound that way when played backwards - here’s what the snippet sounds like on the original track: Interlude Segment. Gibberish, and obviously backwards gibberish. The entire track, when played backwards, includes the lyrics “I can introduce you to evil” and “Catholics, I gotta murder them”.
These days, Danger Mouse is better known for his work as half of Gnarls Barkley.
To be clear, I don’t think there’s any evidence that Danger Mouse is advocation any violence to people of any religious stripe. It’s clear it’s a joke playing on the history of backmasking: the “Paul is Dead” message in I’m So Tired and “Turn me on, dead man” in Revolution 9.
Yeah, wen you play the record forward and its gibberish, but backwards it is that clear, it can only mean it was intentional. You’ll have to ask the person who did it what their intent was.
How do you even play a song backwards these days? All I can imagine is mirroring the waveform.
Even the free program Audacity can reverse the selected part of the wave.
Associating this with Jay-Z is completely wrong. Not only was this an unauthorized remix project, but Jay’s label got it ceased and desisted. (Which is a shame, because a lot of tracks are much better than the mixes The Black Album.)
And of course it was deliberate. The words are too clear, the joke is too obvious, and it sounds a lot like the sort of thing Danger Mouse would do. What I’ve never understood is how this sort of thing is supposed to constitute a “subliminal message”. You won’t even hear it unless you go to the trouble of playing the record backwards.
Since when do angry Christians actually do things like, you know, research?
That’s about it. You can do it in windows sound recorder, it’s that simple.
I thought it was the Beatles’ label that had the problem and that Jay-Z was OK with it.
Do you have a link for this? The Beatles record co. got it ceased and desisted, but all I ever heard from Jay was a tacitly supportive silence. He did, after all, release the CD of a capellas himself, which he would surely have known would lead to these kind of projects (and that is almost certainly why he did it).
What I don’t get about that preacher is that if he listened to Jay-Z’s actual records forward, he would hear Jay-Z saying, for instance:
Sure, I separate what someone says in a song and what they believe and do in life, but apparently the preacher doesn’t. So does that mean he is fine with murder, just so long as it’s not Jesus being murdered? That’s an odd interpretation of the 5th (?) commandment.
Oh, he doesn’t even need to listen to the lyrics… because God Himself told him Hip Hop was the devil’s tool:
If you want to know more then his website provides, you can get the EX-treme Truth Behind Hip Hop bundle, including TBHH 3: Antichrist Superstar. I would think Mr. Lewis would be interested in spreading the good word for free (considering Hip Hop is the greatest threat to youth culture and all) but the set does cost 75 dollars.
And wasn’t Jesus willing to be murdered to pay for the sins of all mankind anyway?
You (and gredbioz) are right–I was misremembering. (I think Jay still could have had a legitimate beef since DM was selling the album, but if he did he didn’t pursue it.)
Somewhat related, there’s a flash site that features clips of certain song both forwards and backwards.
If Empty Spaces is accurate (I’ve a hard time distinguishing words) that’s great.