In search of an American voice for a Jay-Z documentary - voice over artist needs to have a conversational tone, sound as if they are talking from memory rather than the script and deliver the reading with weight and control (with special attention given to the emotional aspects of the script).
Please submit a sample recording of the paragraph below to be considered:
Carter recalls that he was living his life on the streets from the age of 13, when talking about the allure of being a ‘drug-pushing hustler’ - something he claims to not have given up until the very eve of the release of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996.
In his autobiography he admits that life was hard and dangerous: ‘Guys my age, fed up with watching their moms struggle on a single income, were paying utility bills with money from hustling’ and acknowledges that, as the crack game exploded, young men, ‘wore automatic weapons like they were sneakers.’
Some critics argue that he is so far removed from that scenario, now that he is a superstar featured in magazines, owns his own businesses and has won Grammys, that he has lost the right to rap about that life. Carter’s response to this criticism is clear -
‘How distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime… I was part of a generation of kids who saw something special about what it means to be human—something bloody and dramatic and scandalous that happened right here in America—and hip-hop was our way of reporting that story, telling it to ourselves and to the world.’
