Slight evidence of crown-slippage, but some stirring moments: ‘Minority Report’ is the record’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” moment, a raw retelling of the impact of Hurricane Katrina that sees Jay Z place blame “in the hands of the people that left my people stranded” and Chris Martin – yes, father of Apple, husband of Gwyneth – produces and sings on the not-bad closer ‘Beach Chair’.Ī risky business, sampling the squawking orphans of Broadway musical Annie, but ‘Hard Knock Life’ proved Jay-Z could pull off a bold mainstream move without the whole thing blowing up in his face. The back-from-retirement album, as Jay Z trades in his gold watch for a number of high profile guest spots (John Legend, Dr Dre, Usher, wife-to-be Beyoncé on price-of-fame number ‘Hollywood’). But it’s a rare rap album that pulls off tracks about adoring one’s wife (‘Part Two (On The Run)’ and caring for one’s daughter (‘Jay Z Blue’) without ladling on too much schmaltz, and the Pharrell-produced ‘Oceans’, a noble meditation on slavery crooned by Frank Ocean, is a career highlight for both. Some slightly cringeworthy moments, too – rapping Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on ‘Holy Grail’ probably isn’t one for the ages. They called it “dad rap”, and it’s true that it didn’t hit with the shock of the new displayed on Kanye’s ‘Yeezus’. But what does it mean, if you have to sit through a Lenny Kravitz guest spot (‘Guns N Roses’) to get there? There are some bangers here – the Kanye-produced ‘Some People Hate’, a slamming remix of ‘The Blueprint’’s ‘U Don’t Know’ featuring shouty Brooklyn mob MOP. The cockiness is plain from the opening track, ‘The Dream’, where Jay Z communes with the ghost of his late friend The Notorious B.I.G before sampling a verse of Biggie’s ‘Juicy’ – it’s meant, doubtless, as tribute, but comes off a little crass, to be honest. The Blueprint 2: The Gift And The Curseįollowing up a career classic with a double-album sequel is asking for trouble, and so it is with ‘The Gift And The Curse’. Agree? Disagree? Have your say in the comments.ġ3. But a trawl through his discography has been quite eye-opening – I definitely underrated 2007’s ‘American Gangster’ on its release, while some of the flashier releases that impressed so much at the time don’t really stand up now. Sequencing the lower end was a bit of a headache – I don’t think he’s actually made a properly bad record, save perhaps for that rather ill-advised Linkin Park collaboration back in 2004. Well, maybe that Kanye fella had a perch while his back was turned.Īs Jigga finishes his UK tour at the O2 tonight, it’s time to survey his back catalogue and try to place them in order. He’s retired from music, and returned to find his throne unclaimed. He’s run clothing lines and record companies. Since his breakout album ‘Reasonable Doubt’ hit the streets in 1996, Shawn Carter has cast an increasingly long shadow over hip-hop. Jay Z is one of those rare figures who’s stayed put. It’s the rare figure, though, that can fight their way to the top of the pile and stay there. One eye open, for real, and forever.Hip-hop, as we’re told, isn’t just a musical style – it’s a way of life. You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. Like you worked that hard to stay the same. People look at you strange, say you changed. Money and power don’t change you, they just further expose your true self. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at, and you can do anything in the world. I believe everyone in the world is born with genius-level talent. The more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make “relieving” the suffering of the addicts. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow. If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. Cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who. Who cares what they say?Ī wise man told me don’t argue with fools. Truth is you don’t need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you. Only God can judge me so I’m gone, either love me or leave me alone. Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow. May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows. I believe you can speak things into existence. I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.Īll I got is dreams. And if that’s true, then we have to really live it - we have to take it for everything it has and “die enormous” instead of “living dormant.” I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!
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