Michael Barbaro

We'll be right back.

Jody Rosen, welcome to the Sunday Daily.

Thanks, Michael.

Great to be here.

You're one of the esteemed critics, I would argue.

Shucks.

Deeply involved in this songwriting project.

And we just spoke to Joe Coscarelli about his conversation with Taylor Swift, just so you know where you're entering here.

That's one kind of songwriting tradition.

When it comes to this list, that wasn't the tradition you focused on.

No, I actually wrote about, had conversations with songwriters who represented a bunch of different other styles, idioms, traditions, vibes, if you will.

Well, let's start with rap, with hip-hop, and who you focused on first.

Yeah, so I went out to Los Angeles and had a conversation with a New Yorker.

That is, with arguably the New Yorker, or at least one of them, Jay-Z, who, of course, is Brooklyn born and bred.

One of the things the writer, rapper behind arguably our great New York anthem of the 21st century, Empire State of Mind, among many other songs.

Beyond Billy Joel's, obviously, yeah.

Yeah, I think of him as sort of more of a bridge and tunnel bard.

But moving on.

So Jay-Z, of course, chronicled his life, his kind of hardscrabble upbringing in Brooklyn, in a lot of his music.

his kind of mythic journey from street corner hustler to famous rapper to now mogul, and yep.