The God MC sounds decidedly human on the newly recorded “Glory, Featuring B.I.C.” as he muses on the failings of his own father, envisions his daughter as a better version of himself and openly adores his newborn child, who makes her debut guest appearance with a chorus of coos and cries in the background.
“The most amazing feeling I feel/Words can’t describe what I’m feeling for real/Baby I paint the sky blue/My greatest creation was you,” Jay-Z gushes on the chorus.
The song feels raw, unpolished and genuine, clearly a snapshot of pure joy.
Along with the bliss of fatherhood, Jay-Z offers up clever double entendres, personal catharsis and a few unexpected revelations about his normally hush-hush relationship with wife and entertainment phenom Beyonce.
“You don’t yet know what swag is/But you was made in Paris/And mama woke up the next day and shot her album package,” Jay-Z reveals about his daughter’s conception.
Later, he alludes to “false alarms and false starts” and “all the pain of the last time,” revealing that Beyonce had a miscarriage before Blue Ivy.
“Last time the miscarriage was so tragic/We was afraid you’d disappear/But nah baby, you magic,” Jay-Z says.
Amid the weighty subject matter, there’s still a dash of Jay-Z’s trademark wordplay and humor: “You’re a child of destiny/You’re the child of my destiny/You’re my child with the child from Destiny’s Child/That’s a hell of a recipe.”
The song is sort of the modern-day, more spontaneous answer to Stevie Wonder’s jubilant “Isn’t She Lovely,” which celebrated the birth of daughter Aisha, who, like Blue Ivy, is featured on the song celebrating her life: “Isn’t she lovely/Isn’t she wonderful/Isn’t she precious/Less than one minute old ... I can’t believe what God has done/Through us he’s given life to one/But isn’t she lovely, made from love.”
Other artists have written songs inspired by their newborn children, though sometimes the muse is less obvious.
Amy Grant penned sunny pop hit “Baby, Baby” for her newborn daughter, Millie, though it masquerades as a generic love song: “Baby baby, I’m taken with the notion/to love you with the sweetest of devotion/Baby, baby, my tender love will flow from/the bluest sky to the deepest ocean.”
Then there’s Lauryn Hill’s “To Zion,” a deeply emotional dedication to her first-born son, on which she says she’s “never been in love like this before” — “I know that a gift so great/Is only one God could create/And I’m reminded every time I see your face/That the joy of my world is in Zion.”
That song became one of the most memorable on Hill’s landmark album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
For Jay-Z, it’s unlikely that “Glory” will achieve the notoriety of “Isn’t She Lovely” or land on any future release, except perhaps as a bonus track. But polish and perfection were not the point. You can almost picture Jay-Z bursting with happiness, rushing over to the studio — or perhaps setting up a makeshift studio at Lenox Hill Hospital, if security gave the OK — to share his latest victory with the world
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