Jay-Z

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Jay-Z

 

Jay-Z

Although the late Biggie Smalls used to joke about going from "ashy to classy," his Brooklyn partner-in-rhyme, Jay-Z, would best embody that shift in style and station. Jay's recording debut, however, was anything but auspicious, spitting a well-constructed yet unremarkable verse on 1993's "Can I Get Open?" by Original Flavor, a group that featured Big Jaz, Jay's mentor in rhyme. At the time, Jay was a small-time hustler trying to make ends meet; "Open" gave him the boost he needed to begin working on his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. After shopping it to every major label record company with no success, Jay and his business partner, Damon Dash, decided to form their own label, Rec-A-Fella Records, a move that would eventually make them very rich men. 

To this day, Reasonable stands as one of rap music's essential albums, not to mention one of the greatest debuts. Like Biggie's Ready to Die, released two years earlier, Reasonable profoundly captures the inner life of the above-average corner boy, especially on songs like "Dead Presidents 2" and "Regrets." Hints of the good life to come were revealed in "Ain't No N***a" (featuring a then-underage Foxy Brown), and Jay's lyrical dexterity was showacased on "22 Twos." The album also features "Brookyln's Finest," Jay's only recorded duet with Biggie, which shows two hungry talents seemingly aware that they had no-one to outduel but each other.

By the time Jay's second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 dropped, he no longer had any competition: Biggie had been gunned down eight months before its release. Nevertheless, Vol. 1 seemed a like corrective measure in the opposite direction of Reasonable Doubt, bearing all the marks of an artist with his eye on a larger pop prize, to the detriment of his art. The dark ethos of his debut was missing almost entirely. Songs like "Imaginary Player" and "Rap Game Crack Game" had heart, but they were drowned by blatant attempts at radio crossover. "I Know What Girls Like" and "(Always Be My) Sunshine" not only found Jay thinning out his dense rhymes but also employing of-the-moment R&B-inflected production that may have earned him club play at the expense of credibility. 

His next move seemed like a certain coffin-nailer: He sampled the theme song from the musical Annie and turned it into an inescapable summer pop-rap crossover hit. The result, the quirkily brilliant "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)," took him from the ears of the cognoscenti to the disc-changers of casual rap fans and sent Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life to the upper reaches of the charts. But where many artists- rappers, especially- would have used this as a jumping-off point to an even more preposterous success, Jay aimed lower, and wisely so. Not particularly cut out for being a true pop artist, Jay used the remainder of Vol. 2 to showcase the skills that earned him his reputation. If the production (thanks to Swizz Beatz and Timbaland) was glossier than that of albums past, it didn't stop Jay from working his tongue in nimble fashion, and the track- such as "N*gga What, N*gga Who," "Money, Cash Hoes," and "Can I Get A..." were more socially experimental and less formulaic than his prior attempts to shine.

Life & Times of S. Carter took his combination of style and substance to its apotheosis. In addition to maintaining a strong lyrical presence, Jay also showcased his talents as a master of flow, changing cadences and rhyme patterns with impressive regularity and flexibility. "So Ghetto," "Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up," "Big Pimpin'," "Dope Man": Nearly every track on this album is sonically unique, and Jay rode each one with aplomb and skill.

By contrast, his next great album (following the merely strong Dynasty Roc La Familia) could have been constructed as a one-trick pony. The Blueprint is one of the few albums since the advent of radio-friendly pop rap in the early '90s that consciously aimed for an all-encompassing feel. Thanks to the soul-drenched production work of then-rookies Just Blaze and Kanye West, Jay-Z was suddenly grappling with a worldview that surpasses his previous limits. Whether he was taking on rivals ("Takeover") or lamenting lost relationships ("Song Cry"), he sounded like he was coming from the same grounded, mature place, a talent few artists of any genre can access.

In 2001, Jay's celebrity status was confirmed with the filming of an Unplugged session, making him one of only a handful of rappers to ever be featured on the MTV show. Backed for the gig by the Roots, he used the forum to continue his squabble with Nas and Mobb Deep, but he also dug into his catalogue, revisiting "Can't Knock the Hustle," from his debut album, and mid-career classics like "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" and "I Just Wanna Luv U (Give It 2 Me)." 

The Unplugged album was modest in execution but long in achievement. Supring, then, that Jay's next effort was the bloated Blueprint 2, the first true mis-step of his career. The double album had barely enough strong songs ("Meet the Parents," "Excuse Me Miss," "A Dream") for an E.P. And he quickly issued a revised version, Blueprint 2.1, slimmed to one disc with bonus tracks... it was no better.

In 2003, Jay announced his "retirement," though everyone knew he would eventually return. The Black Album, my personal favorite, would be Jay's final bow as a recording artist, so he recruited a virtual who's who of great hip-hop producers to see him off. Kany West ("Lucifer"), the Neptunes ("Changing Clothes"), and Timbaland ("Dirt Off Your Shoulder") contributed songs, as did Eminem and, in a thrilling move, Rick Rubin (Dr. Dre and DJ Premier missed the cut due to schedule conflicts). Rubin's contribution, the bruising "99 Problems," would prove to be the album's most potent cut, and the most fitting one for Jay to ride into the sunset with. Old-school and utterly modern, it showed Jay at the top of his game, able to reinvent himself as a rap classicist at the right time, as if to cement his place in hip-hop's legacy. Not to mention his epic mash-up Collision Course EP he did with Linkin Park.

The "retirement" didn't last long; Since then, he has released a consistent amount of albums, most notably 4:44 which saw him really reflecting inward, about his legacy, what he's going to leave his family, and his relationship with his wife... you may have heard of her: Beyoncé. It's always an interesting move to see a rapper get vulnerable, but in this case, it paid off- I would put it up there as one of his best*. Blueprint 3 featured the timeless class "Empire State of Mind" featuring Alicia Keys. Simply put, Jay is an American Treasure- a product of the American Dream- an American Gangster (one of his albums), but most importantly, one of rap's greatest MC's to have ever touched the mic.  Anyone with ears can hear & anyone with eyes can see.

It's...

Jay-Z

 

* In 2013, before 4:44 was released, Jay ranked all of his albums himself... here's JAY's list:

1. Reasonable Doubt
2. The Blueprint
3. The Black Album
4. Vol. 2
5. American Gangster
6. Magna Carta
7. Vol. 1
8. The Blueprint 3
9. Dynasty
10. Vol. 3
11. The Blueprint 2
12. Kingdom Come