With that song, he aimed to issue a corrective in the form of a mission statement. (Death of Autotune),” the lead single from Blueprint 3, and you’ll realize Jay-Z has changed a bit. But he didn’t merely just pay deference to the standard hip-hop pantheon– Playboi Carti, Quavo, Young Thug, Future, and Travis Scott were thrown in the same list as Rakim, Ghostface Killah, and Big L. On the night of his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Jay-Z went on a tweet spree thanking the rappers who inspired him over his career. For better or worse, its most memorable moments come when Jay dips his toes into the zeitgeist and comes away baffled and bemused: “I don’t pop molly, I rock Tom Ford” is an all-time groaner, but “Somewhere in America, Miley Cyrus is still twerking” is a great line in spite of itself. That approach yields a few solid songs: “BBC” is a summery and organic slice of funk a la “Hola Hovito,” with the added bonus of a Nas guest appearance “Fuckwithmeyouknowigotit” is a sticky street single, thanks in large part to Rick Ross. When Jigga finally enters, it’s with quick choppy bars about men who’ve been swallowed up by fame, and then he’s gone again, replaced by JT singing an interpolation of the hook to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It’s a fitting introduction to an album from a guy who seemed a little unsure himself about what to do with his status as one of the biggest stars in the world.įortunately for everyone, Jay’s path isn’t nearly as dark as that of Mike Tyson or Kurt Cobain, both who come up in that opening verse: rather than resorting to violence against himself or others, he’s simply throwing his resources at whatever musical whim comes to him and then seeing what sticks.
Magna Carta Holy Grail runs for a full minute and a half before we hear Jay Z’s voice: it’s all portentous piano, distorted little snippets of speech, and a crooning Justin Timberlake. Kingdom Comes ends with the quasi-infamous “Beach Chair,” produced by and featuring Chris Martin, who croons a chorus that goes, “I hear my angels sing / Life is a dream and you really don’t wanna wake up, wake up.” It seems prescient that the album acknowledges that you may already be long asleep.
Tropez, grounding the album’s richness somewhere that is more relatable. The album’s gold-plated tackiness is only redeemed on “Do U Wanna Ride,” a song dedicated to Jay’s then-incarcerated childhood friend Emory Jones, in which finds Jay traces his life story from the projects to St. Dre’s solo production here-“30 Something”-feels like it’s going out of its way not to disturb you. The back-to-back songs featuring Pharrell and Usher and then Beyoncé are pure Baz Luhrmann rap, and even Dr. The rest of Kingdom Come, regrettably, is rap music fit for a cocktail party aboard a yacht bobbing peacefully in the Adriatic Sea. He also examines his own response to the event, rapping, “Sure, I ponied up a mil’ but I didn’t give my time / So in reality, I didn’t give a dime / Or a damn, I just put money in the hands / Of the same people that left my people stranded.” It remains one of his most interesting bits of rapping ever, and you can draw a direct line from it to his recent interest in producing media explicitly about race and the criminal justice system-from his short film for the New York Times to documentaries about Kalief Browder and Trayvon Martin. In contextualizing Katrina within America’s long, shameful history of disenfranchising its black citizens, Jay defends looting-an act of the defenseless that even most reasonable liberals condemn. But the song stands out for both its incisiveness and its honesty. It’s not the best track to listen to on a purely aesthetic basis, with Jay rapping in a stilted flow over a plodding piano beat. There is most obviously “Minority Report,” which addresses Hurricane Katrina. It might be quicker just to talk about the parts of Kingdom Come that were actually good. The song it accompanied-Jay’s “comeback” single “Show Me What You Got”-is a not-unlikable Just Blaze reconfiguration of an obviously much better Public Enemy song, but Lil Wayne freestyled over the beat at the height of his powers, crossing Jay up like Iverson did MJ. careen through Monaco-footage which would quickly be repurposed into an advertisement for Budweiser.
Jay-Z’s comeback from his essentially nonexistent retirement was heralded with a video in which professional race car drivers Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.