Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, has been a titan in the rap community for well over a decade. Since his record debut on Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z has enjoyed tremendous critical and commercial success. He has also parlayed his music career to a very successful business career, having started his own record label (Roc-a-Fella Records), clothing line (Rocawear), and bar/restaurants. But he could not have achieved this without having success as a rapper.
Jay-Z is known not only for his rhymes but his delivery. Like many of the better MCs, he had to earn his keep through rap battles and guest spots before getting his own career off the ground. His career took off towards the end of fierce divisions between East Coast and West Coast rappers with the death of his friend the Notorious B.I.G., who guested on “Brooklyn’s Finest” off Jay-Z’s album Reasonable Doubt (I suppose the division still exists, but after Biggie and Tupac died, that whole thing seemed to back off considerably).
Jay has released eleven studio albums during his career, and though he has “retired” to pursue more business interests, many people believe he could never really give up on his music and will ultimately be back. His sixth album, The Blueprint (2001), is considered a modern hip hop classic. The Blueprint is the focus of my next blog entry.
#59 – Jay-Z, The Blueprint (Metascore = 88)
I really did not become aware of Jay-Z until his third record, Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life, which is a classic itself. There were hits galore on that record. His following two were equally as popular though critically not as strong. The Blueprint changed all that. With The Blueprint Jay-Z took his raw emotions and poured them into his lyrics, responding to fellow rappers that had dissed him and critics who thought he was essentially pandering to one type of listener (mainstream listeners) over other listeners. Probably the biggest motivation came from the rapper Nas, who first criticized Jay-Z with his song “We Will Survive”. Jay-Z responded, and this fueled a feud that carried for a few years before the two resolved it in 2005.
The opening track, “The Ruler’s Back”, announces his return and his dominance in the rap game, smacking back at his detractors. Backed by the Doors’ track “Five to One”, “Takeover” is a tour de force that openly blasts Nas and Prodigy from Mobb Deep. He belittles Mobb Deep to the point of obsolescence while blasting Nas for his inconsistent albums after his own classic Illmatic. To me any criticisms of Jay-Z going mainstream would be squashed by these two tracks because (a) he won’t back down and (b) his rhymes (references, style, etc) are just that good.
The next three tracks—“Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”, “Girls, Girls, Girls”, and “Jigga That Nigga”—are three of his most famous tracks, so I won’t bore you all with discussion on these other than to say the rhymes continue his lyrical excellence. I will say, though, that The Blueprint features several popular producers who brought their own unique stamp to his sound. Kanye West (the “everyman” of the time), Just Blaze, and Timbaland are just a few of the producers on the album. Kanye West’s tracks in particular are very good, as are Just Blaze’s. And the majority of the rhymes on the album are strictly from him, but he is joined on the track “Renegade” by Eminem.
Jay mostly focuses on life on the streets, but sometimes he reflects on relationships in the past and other issues going on. “Song Cry” is a touching, autobiographical (?) song. He raps on past relationships, having to hustle to survive, and how those relationships have come and gone. “Song Cry” was the final single off of The Blueprint. “Renegade” with Eminem has two rappers focusing on different issues; while Jay is rapping about the father that wasn’t there for him and the means he had to take to live, Eminem is rapping about how the public and critics perceive his music and lyrics. Each perspective is unique yet intertwines if you think about it, because ultimately they refer to survival via means that are counter to what the public expects (hence “renegade”).
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