Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Travis M. Andrews.
As the rapper tells it, in grade school, he found something of an escape in language. He’s mentioned this in interviews throughout his career, most recently telling David Letterman, “I had a sixth-grade teacher. Her name was Ms. Lowden, and I just loved the class so much. Like reading the dictionary, and my love of words — I just connected with her.”
His teacher
That teacher’s name is Renee Rosenblum-Lowden, and she remembers Jay-Z as well, though she still refers to him as Shawn.
Rosenblum-Lowden, 77, now lives in Columbia, Md., but in 1980, she taught sixth grade at Brooklyn’s I.S. 318. Carter, a shy and avid reader, was one of her standout students.
“The thing I remember about Shawn is he took the reading test and he scored 12th grade in the sixth grade,” Rosenblum-Lowden told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “And I remember telling him — because I really feel it’s important to tell kids they’re smart — I said, ‘You’re smart, you better do well.’ And he listened.”
Reconnecting
Rosenblum-Lowden first learned of the rapper Jay-Z when she began teaching about prejudice in rap lyrics. Students would bring in his songs as examples of sexism.
But, she said, “I didn’t know Shawn was Jay-Z at that time.”
She didn’t make the connection until she read a 1999 Teen People profile of Jay-Z that she realized he and Shawn Carter were one in the same.
In the piece, Jay-Z called Rosenblum-Lowden “someone who helped turn my life around.”
“She took our class to her house in Brooklyn on a field trip,” he continued. “You know many teachers who’d take a bunch of black kids to their house?”
He’s mentioned the field trip in various interviews, including the one with Letterman. Rosenblum-Lowden said she remembers it well.
The two don’t keep in touch, but they spoke after the Teen People profile. Rosenblum-Lowden reached out to the magazine and asked if they could put her in touch with him.
“Five minutes later, he called,” she said. “He was 12 years old again, calling me Ms. Lowden.”
She said she’s equally proud of her students who found success in other careers, but there’s a certain sense of pride that comes with having affected a young Jay-Z — particularly when he uses his national profile to advocate for better teacher wages, as he did in the Letterman interview.
“One thing that I feel uncomfortable with is all the credit he gives me. I don’t think I’m deserving of all that credit. He was super bright,” she said. Still, “it makes me feel great that I had a part, or that he feels I had a part, in his love for words.”
That said, there is one thing she, as a lover of the New York Mets, would do different, given the chance.
“If I had known he was a Yankees fan,” she joked, “he never would have gotten into seventh grade.”