Jay-Z's "American Gangster": It's Where You're From AND Where You're At
Written: Nov 09 '07 (Updated Nov 10 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: Soulful, complementary production. And when Jay's on, there are few better emcees.
Cons: Pharrell needs to stick to designing sneakers or skateboards or something.
The Bottom Line: It's vaguely tied in to a movie, but you don't need to see it to enjoy this CD. Jay-Z shakes the rust off and makes another solid album.
speeddemon531's Full Review: American Gangster [PA] by Jay-Z
I can admit to being skeptical about this whole "American Gangster" thing. To me, Jay-Z's decision to jump into the studio after catching a screening of the Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe flick (which details the NYC drug trade at the height of the Vietnam War) made my eyebrows go up in the air. Was this album going to be a inspired look back by one of the few guys who did dirt and made it through to a legal (and wealthy) life without incarceration or death? Or was Jay reacting to the fact that a lot of folks unnecessarily lambasted his 2006 "comeback" effort "Kingdom Come", which found the former hustler in relaxed, mature CEO mode?
Thank goodness Jay proved me wrong. "American Gangster" the album isn't perfect, but it finds Jay shaking off the rust that contributed to some of the questionable parts of "Kingdom Come". He's shaken off the somewhat awkward Dr. Dre collabos and settled into a much more organic, soulful production here. A lot of folks are calling "Gangster" a sort of companion piece to "Reasonable Doubt" (Jay's legendary 1996 debut), and there are definitely similarities between the two albums, as well as Jay's high-water musical mark, 2001's "Blueprint". What winds up being most impressive here is that Jay sounds like this time he's coming back because he has something to say and not because he wants to show everyone that he still has "it". After nine #1 albums (more than any artist except Elvis and The Beatles), one would imagine that Jay has nothing more to aspire to on a commercial level, so he's gotta be makin' records out of a sense of musical adventure.
Although there are songs that directly allude to the film and Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas character, the album's best songs are the ones that completely separate themselves from the film. After the underwhelming Jay/Nas summit on last year's "Black Republican", the two former adversaries combine to annihilate the organ-spiced "Success" (Nas's winning rhyme: "up your catalog, dog, mine's worth too much/Like Mike Jax ATV Pub Mottola can't touch"-one of at least three Michael J. references on this album). It's got a righteous bravado that's missing from TONS of contemporary hip-hop. "American Gangster" (a bonus track that wound up being my favorite song on the CD) and "Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)" share the same defiant swagger that a hustler must feel when he's on top of his game and living high. Hmmm...so maybe these songs don't entirely separate themselves from the film. The references are just less obvious.
Of course, everything that goes up must come down. Dudes like Jay and B.I.G. have always stood head and shouldes above most of the other former drug dealers-turned-emcees to me because even when they've discussed the high life, they've also stressed that there's a lot of agonizing and regret that goes on. That emotion strikes me as the mark of someone who really lived the life as opposed to someone playing that lifestyle out dramatically, mainly due to my personal experiences growing up in Brooklyn. A lot of the older dealers around my way took great pains to let me and my boys know that there were other (more legal, less painful-emotionally and physically) ways to make a dollar. "Pray" and "Success"-technically the album's bookends-are haunting tracks in which Jay expertly details the soul-searching and paranoia that comes out of this life.
If it wasn't for the liner notes, I could never have told you that Puff Daddy and his reconstituted Hitmen are responsible for most of the album's tracks. It's a bang-up job behind the boards (someone wisely told Puff to stifle it on the ad-libs), with soul samples that sound familiar but not obvious. The intense yet fragile Marvin Gaye sample that comprises "American Dreamin'" is a particular highlight, while the 808-powered thump of "Hello Brooklyn 2.0" (sampled wholesale from The Beastie Boys song of the same name)would be boomin' out of Jeeps all over the BK-if folks still drove Jeeps. Lil' Wayne's rasp (he sounds like Prince imitating Fred Sanford) adds character to the proceedings, even if he really isn't saying anything.
The only misfires from a production standpoint? It's gotta be The Neptunes. Our man Pharrell has become gratingly one-dimensional lately, and the two tracks he provides here-"I Know" and "Blue Magic" (on which Jay sounds suspiciously like Parrish Smith circa '88)-waste masterful verses from Jay due to Skateboard P's tinny keyboard beats. "I Know", in particular, suffers from peculiar placement-it actually drags the energy (and quality) level of the entire album down and it takes a couple of songs for the CD to get back on track.
That all said, can I say I'm a little conflicted about "Ignorant Sh!t"? While the song itself succeeds (especially notable in light of the fact that it jacks The Isley Brothers' "Between The Sheets"-the most sampled slow jam in history), and the profanity-filled chorus makes me chuckle, it's the one point where I'm a little sour on the lyrical content. Jay sort of resorts to the same old "our music is a reflection of our community"/blameless excuse BS and I'm too old and too smart to believe that garbage anymore. But dammit if I'm not jammin' every time I play the song. What kinda hypocrite does that make me?
While I'm not head-over-heels in love with "American Gangster" the album (it's somewhere between "like a lot" and "love" for me), it sits comfortably in the upper tier of Jay's work. Not as good as "Reasonable Doubt"/"Blueprint"/"Black Album", but better than any other 38-year old rapper has ever put out (can YOU think of one?). More than anything, it proves that when he's got the eye of the tiger and producers who are sympathetic to his sound, Shawn Carter is still one of the best to ever do it.
"American Gangster" by Jay-Z
Released 2007 on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam Records
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
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