Stairway2Drew's Full Review: The Black Album [PA] by Jay-Z
It would be ridiculous to spend frivolous review time recapping and dissecting Shawn Carter's career. It's been done, and by better than I - i'm more of a hip-hop fan than historian, and while I'm fairly familiarized with schools both old and new, the best I can tell you about Carter (or Jay-Z onstage) is that The Black Album is either album number nine or ten (depending on if you view Unplugged as an actual album) for the brash Brooklyn emcee. I can tell you that Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint are the accepted classics, and that Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life is an atrocity. I can tell you that The Blueprint 2 is nice, but a double-disc overload.
And now, I can tell you what i think of The Black Album, Jay's much-vaunted and -discussed outro after announcing his retirement early on in '03. At his best, the Roc-a-fella CEO is an on-point lyricist with a near-impeccable flow and a near-painful honesty. At his worst, he's a braggart, all testosterone and ridiculous sexual posturing and money, cash, hoes. Jay's best singles, however, have combined the best of both worlds, his disappointing materialism offset by blazing production and lyricism that trumps whatever Chingy-of-the-week is currently shifting units. If The Black Album isn't Jay's best album - and it isn't - it _is_ his most personal, confessional album since Reasonable Doubt. The stark honesty of the album's best joints are in strained contrast with drivel like lead-off single "Change Clothes and Go," wherein superproducers The Neptunes, arguably in their 16th minute of fame, utilize their now-tired arsenal of springy, warmed-over synths - and as an aside, someone tell head Neptune Pharrell Williams that his tuneless falsetto _does_, in fact, grow old. And fast. "Change Clothes" is Black Album at its worst. Fortunately, when the album is at its best, it's practically revelatory, and a testament to what Jay-Z is capable of when he puts his mind to it.
If there's anything about a Jay-Z album that distracts props-giving from his fairly-tight flow, it's the production, and Black Album continues in the same grand tradition, showcasing ten of hip-hop's hottest producers over fourteen tracks. "December 4th" threads a synth bed of surprsing grandeur underneath Jay-Z's life retrospective (with a little help from Momma Jigga, who drops, in a stroke of inspiration, some insightful storytelling between Jay's verses), Just Blaze's triumphantly programmed strings recalling, perhaps, a sample of an old-school soul record. Timbaland underscores Jay's anti-hater anthem "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" with an ugly series of beeps and bloops; it sounds worn, but it works. "Moment of Clarity" is ominous, all minor chords and lurching piano lines, and it's a fine song - but, to be honest, producer Eminem's done this before. It takes a few of Jay's whip-smart lines and verses to remind you that, no, at no point during "Moment of Clarity" should you be chanting "'cause i'm a rene-GAAAAADE!"
"99 Problems" is Rick Rubin's contribution, and it sounds so aggressively old-school - churning fits of distorted guitars broken apart by nasty drum breaks - that it almost loops around the spectrum of fashion and innovation to sound like the freshest thing on The Black Album; apart from, of course, "Lucifer," current phenom Kanye West's bouncy near-ragga stomp, which sounds so exciting and elastic that it masks a lazy chorus like "i'm from the murder capitol, where we murder for capital/ so you n*ggas change your attitude 'fore they askin' what happened to you" nicely. Conversely, West's "Encore" production is listenable at best, warmed-over cut-rate soul with some anonymous Pharrell soundalike crooning "what the hell are you waiting for?" behind the chorus. Jigga, of course, rips the track. Where's the _balance_, guys?
Not on this album. Though The Black Album is essentially worth its salt, songs like the misguided Madonna sampler "Justify My Thug" and an unnecessary "Intro" cause the album to skimp on the good material for their inclusion. "Threat"'s production sucks, too, but i'd love to know who the nasally "thug" rambling in the song's intro and outro sections is, because he kinda sounds like Dave Chappelle.
Of course, on the production end of things, it's kind of cool that relative unknowns The Buchannans pull the rug out from pretty much everyone else with "What More Can I Say," a triumphant, enthusiastic boast that's probably the album's tightest track. And hey, it takes skill to get me to not only appreciate, but heap a healthy amount of praise on a track that's essentially a chest-thumping song-length brag session. But, it's Jigga. He's cool like that.
***
"now you know your *ss is willie when they got you in the mag
for like half a billy, and your *ss ain't lily
white that sh*t that you write must be illy
either that or your flow is silly - it's both
i don't mean to boast but damn if i don't brag...."
See, this is just a sample line from "What More Can I Say." And I could go on. Jay-Z doesn't think he's the bomb... he knows it. Not only that, he won't let you forget it. I won't say it doesn't ever get tiresome - especially because, much as i respect him as an emcee, Jay ain't the greatest of all time - but since Jay does have talent and does have a flow, you have to respect the fact that he brags with such dexterity. "What More Can I Say" is The Black Album's best example of this - you could argue that he's not the best emcee ever, but when he's spitting his case with this kind of fluidity, you don't particularly feel like contesting it. You'd rather sit back and enjoy.
But this is why The Black Album is frustratingly uneven, too - we know Jay's skills and what he's capable of, but during parts of this album, he's just plain _off_. Much of his career has been marked by the same kind of conflict, although his accepted classics Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint largely cleared up these issues, if just for an album's length. "Change Clothes and Go" is unforgivably pedestrian in both beat and rhyme, and "Justify My Thug" harps further on Jay's past as a hood who transcended his environment.. which is all well and good, but I personally prefer my browbeat themes to take the shape of a little artistic creativity, and "Justify My Thug" is just _ugly_ beyond expressing subject matter that Jay has expressed with far more eloquence.
And then there are times when Jay's rhyming is so impressive, you're literally compelled to applaud. "99 Problems" is, if a very brash song, a very funny one as well, the middle section's bit of storytelling gleaning a few laughs in the form of Jay's impression of a white-bred patrolman -
"so i pull over to the side of the road
'son, do you know what i'm stopping you for?'
cause i'm young and i'm black and my hat's real low?
do i look like a mind reader, sir? i don't know
am i under arrest or should i guess some more?
'well, you were doin' fifty-five in a fifty-four
license and registration and step out of the car
are you carryin' a weapon on you? i know a lot of you are'..."
Jay-Z ends The Black Album on a note of wistful optimism, "My 1st Song" serving as a catharsis of sorts. Reflective, but hopeful, and upbeat, "My 1st Song" finishes The Black Album on a forward-minded, regretless wave of good feeling and optimism.
***
My last beef with the album is with the album's title. The Black Album. A title like this conjures up the mission statement behind, say, a group like Blackalicious, whose beats are laced with the finest soul, funk, and blues possible, drawing from the incredibly deep well of black music in all its forms to make something exciting and invigorating. Jay's Black Album isn't bad at all. But a title like that implies much more, and something that would have been a higher note for Jay to retire on.
Still - The Black Album is a strong case for Jay-Z's strength as an emcee. It's hard not to get swept up in Jay's fond recollections - and the fact that there are no guest stars on the album reinforce its singularity, and the fact that it's very personal. Perhaps best of all, any illnesses caused by Hard Knock Life or The Blueprint 2 are likely to be allieviated with The Black Album, if not downright cured.
The Black Album, Jay-Z s tenth and final solo disc, features tracks by Pharrell and Dr. Dre. Cross promotional tie-ins to the disc include the simulta...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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