Jay-Z The Black Album
Rocafella records
2003

By Rael Salley


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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