This Can't Be Life

This Kanye West-produced number is a track from Jay-Z's 2000 album, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. The song features his Roc-A-Fella colleague Beanie Sigel and Texan rapper Scarface.

Jay-Z explained the seemingly heartless line, "Baby came out stillborn, still I gotta move on," in his 2010 book Decoded. Said the Brooklyn MC: "This refers to something that happened to me around that time, 1994, when my girl of five years got pregnant and lost the baby in a miscarriage. Now, obviously, miscarriages happen everywhere, to anyone, but the point is that on top of the especially acute paranoia and disappointment and exhaustion I'm feeling from the street life, friends getting shot, your family being broke, I have to deal with the everyday tragedies that stalk everyone. And when that hits you, sometimes it becomes clear that you have to get out, that this really can't be life, it has to be more."