Listen, Jay-Z knows “the whole flow is foolish.”
But in this case, “foolish” stands for the impossibly
skillful, as well as the ludicrous. He knows how the focus
on money, clothes and hoes is received — and admits
it is not all there is in life. But who talks about “them
big body Benzes,” fashion, dem hoes, and of course,
himself, in a more appealing way? For that matter, who markets
it as well? Who other than Shawn Carter has had such a wide-ranging
influence on pop culture, even beyond the rap game?
Shawn Carter, known better as Jay-Z, sometimes known as Hova,
has been setting standards of hip-hop lyricism since 1996.
His career has spanned eight years and ten albums. Though
every album has not been a hit, those two or three that did
stumble only did so in the shadow of the previous album. Sales
of 17 million albums (and counting) attest to his popularity.
Jay-Z has developed his own style, becoming “the music
biz’s number one supplia.” Jay-Z has accomplished
this by telling stories. Stories of his life experiences,
what he would like to become, and, since becoming wealthy,
what his life is now. Carter claims he never had a real job,
but sold drugs until his musical debut. Whatever. At this
point, that matters little since stories like that have become
familiar in hip-hop. What matters is how the story is told.
What matters even more is the hustle, intrinsic to that lifestyle.
Jay-Z has built his career on the hustle. But somehow the
tale has been distilled from his specific experience: life
in housing projects in Brooklyn, New York to a concept that
includes work ethics, goal making, and finally luxuriating
in one’s successes. Modesty has little room, but even
the bragging rights must be earned. According to Jay-Z, he
has lived the American dream — rags to riches. “Hard
knock life” arguably expresses this best, but Jay-Z’s
newest effort again surpasses the last as in “Justify
My Thug.” Perhaps Jay-Z’s popularity and success
has come from this continual effort to hustle and strive for
excellence —“I done came through the block and
everything that’s fly.” It is with this reputation
he offers an album that is “star-studded,” with
collaborative input from The Neptunes, Just Blaze, Eminem,
Timbaland and Kanye West, to name a few.
“The Black Album” is said to be Jay-Z’s
last — he is retiring from making albums. The assertion
is hard to believe since he has been so prominent on the musical
scene for so long (he has been called the Stephen King of
hip-hop). While the album retains the swaggering braggadocio
expected of Jay-Z, the “big pimpin’,” clubbin’
story takes a backseat to a memoir about a life’s work.
On the autobiographical track called “December 4th,”
Jay-Z includes sound bytes from his mother. This odd gesture
has a lot to do with Jay-Z’s vision of the rap game:
“Everybody’s gonna be rapping hard and killing
each other and talking crazy, and then somebody’s gonna
come in and...make them a nice, hot song like ‘I’m
not a fighter, I’m a lover.’” The Black
Album makes a celebration of life. Not just thug life, mind
you, but everyday life — anyone’s everyday life:
“I don’t care what you do for stacks/I know the
world glued your back to the wall/you gotta brawl/do that.”
Who knows if this is Jay-Z’s last album. If it is, it
would be a good “victory lap,” one that synopsizes
a lifestyle, a life’s work of entertaining, and a life’s
goals — while itself being thoroughly entertaining.
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