Jay Z Sent The Doors’ Drummer John Densmore A Letter Explaining Hip-Hop

Jay Z sent a letter to The Doors’ drummer John Densmore, explaining hip-hop to him.

Densmore was talking to Huffington Post Live, and he admitted that he was completely flummoxed by the genre after Jay Z used The Doors’ song, “Five To One,” on his 2001 album, The Blueprint.

Densmore explained, “Hip-hop was just coming on, and I was like, ‘What is the stuff? There’s no melody,’ I was a curmudgeon.”

Jay Z heard about Densmore’s thoughts, so he decided to get in contact with the rock drummer. Densmore added, “Jay Z wrote me a letter saying, ‘Hey, we’re fighting the authority just like you guys did back then’.”

He didn’t stop there though. The hip hop icon also sent Densmore a t-shirt too, which was blazoned with the Def Jam logo, that he has kept ever since.

The Rolling Stone then reported that Densmore quoted Jay Z a decade later while writing his book, The Doors: Unhinged.

Densmore used some of Jay Z’s thoughts from the rapper’s book, Decoded, as he looked to discussed why financial success doesn’t equate to happiness, even using some of Jay Z’s lyrics to hep prove his point.

Densmore then added, “I took a photo of me in this T-shirt, which I saved, and sent it to him and said, ‘Hey, would you give me some of these words?'”

The drummer also admitted that before the death of Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist for The Doors who founded the group, he managed to smooth over the previous problems in their relationship.

Previously, Densmore was disgusted to learn that Manzarek and Robby Krieger, the guitarist with The Doors, had toured under the Doors name in 2002, which saw Densmore refuse to talk to the pair for a decade.

However, the drummer admitted, “Fortunately, I had a closing phone call.”

[Image via Adam J. Sablich/Shutterstock]