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Jay-Z Album Review: AMERICAN GANGSTER

“On that Diamonds remix I swore I spazzzed but then my Big Brother (Jay-Z) came through and kicked my a$$....My Big Brother is who I always tried to be” – Kanye West – “Big Brother”.

So Kanye West and 50 Cent got all the hype this year. But quiet as it’s kept T.I.’s album is so far the best album of the year. But hold up. When the hell did Jay-Z drop? I ain’t even know dude was coming back out to tell you the truth. When we last left Jay-Z, Benz0 was commenting on how he didn’t know if Jay-Z’s comeback album KINGDOME COME was the last breath of a dying man or the first few breaths of a resuscitated man rising from the shadows of death. Lo and behold this dude Hov is hard-headed and he done dropped again with ZERO hype and fanfare. Had my manz Princeton not text messaged me I wouldn’t even have had a clue dude was out. I finally did see an advertisement on the TNT halftime NBA show but seriously…No major buzz at all preceded the drop of this album. So you know Benz0 was mad skeptical after he had to bash Hova’s last album despite Hova being the best rapper to ever live in Benz0’s eyes. But come wack and I’m gonna tell the people the truth and I had to let the public know that Jay’z last comeback album was mostly B.S. Interestingly enough I compared Jay-Z’s last comeback album to Michael Jordan’s 2nd comeback to the NBA with the Washington Wizards. A comeback that would see a fatter Jordan sitting mostly on the bench icing those old knees instead of dazzling us with 50 point plus works of art. But remember Michael Jordan came back out of retirement the first time and was a bit rusty the first year but the following year he would win 3 more championships back to back to back. So could it be that Jay-Z was also just a little “rusty” during the first year of his comeback attempt? Well after a superb cameo on Nas’ 2006 album on the song “Black Republican” you could see that the “rust” was starting to disappear and the best rapper not named Tupac or Biggie was headed back towards the top of his game. But doing good on a cameo is one thing.

What about carrying an entire album? Well my friends I’m happy to report that Jay’s comeback from retirement is starting to parallel Jordan’s FIRST comeback and not Jordan’s 2nd comeback. Specifically this 2nd offering, AMERICAN GANGSTER, since Jay-Z un-retired is CHAMPIONSHIP MATERIAL. As unlikely as it seems this dude has crafted a masterpiece OUT OF NO WHERE. On Jay’s BLACK ALBUM he mentioned “Truth be told I’d rather rap like Common Sense, But I sold 5 Million and I ain’t been rhyming like Common Since..”. See the truth is Jay-Z was CARRYING his whole record label on his shoulders and thus was forced to focus on putting out songs that would satisfy the simple minded masses that mostly represent the group of people that buy rap. Deep down inside he was suffering as he knew that the cookie cutter club songs were a far cry from the artistic hiphop of the GOLDEN AGE that happened in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s. Jay-Z HAS ALWAYS been a disciple of old school rap where lyrics really mattered and artistic integrity was akin to the code of the ancient Japanese samurai. Well now that Jay’s made his millions he felt he could then retire “Jay-Z” and introduce the world to “Sean Carter”. Sean Carter represents Jay-Z’s true soul. His true passions. His true dreams. Jay envisioned being able to come out with an album that was more about artistry than an album crafted strictly for club play and record sales. Well now he’s gone and done just that this time around as he shelves the mindless club bangers and gives us an album 100% devoted to Sean Carter’s desires of artistic freedom and the results are BREATHTAKING!!!

So what made Jay-Z the “Big Brother” that Kanye West always wanted to emulate? It’s Jay’s penchant to be great at every aspect of hiphop. You want club bangers? Jay gave us them with little effort. You want Tupac like emotion and sincerity? He bared his soul on every album though not as much as he would have liked. You want old school raw battle lyrics? Yeah he definitely covered that every time out. But perhaps his greatest talent was his ability to paint us vivid pictures through his lyrics to the point where you felt you were right there as the main character in his story. On this album Jay is up to his old tricks as he paints us more pictures on “Pray”, “American Dreamin’”, and “Fallin”. “Pray” is classic Jay as he basically raps a “motion picture” for us in like three verses as a young Sean Carter goes from being a little boy who girls said was “too small” to one of the most feared and ruthless drug dealers in the game trapped in a life of hedonism and materialism. Peep the genius: “Mindstate from a gangsta from the 40’s, meet the business mind of Motown’s Barry Gordy, turned crack rock into a chain of 40/40’s..America meet the gangsta Sean Corey, Close your eyes and you can pretend you’re me, This is the genesis of a NEMESIS, Mother America is not witnessing it, The Harlem Renaissance birthed black businesses, this is the tale of lost innocence…as the incense burns and turntables turn and that Al Green plays, I see my mother’s afro, as Mama taps her toes as she rolls her J’s (joints), and my papa just left the house in search of the killer of my Uncle Ray, and she’s trying to calm my nerves as I observe this is just ONE DAY..and what tomorrow has in store we just can’t be sure so all we can do is just PRAY....”.

I mean this dude has literally set up the intro to a motion picture in a few words. All I can say is Jesus H Christ, the King is back. Big Brother was just showing off on this one. Flowing almost seamlessly after “Pray” is “American Dreamin” that takes things back to the soulful Marvin Gaye days that finds Jay reclining in his “lazy boy” in a haze of smoke reflecting on his dreams and aspirations. The sulky smooth track is to “die for”. Seriously. That phrase is about the only way I can explain the smoothness of the track. This song hits you harder than any club banger out there. But now we came to the payoff. Trumping almost any song on the album is “Fallin”. This song is one of the best songs Jay has EVER made in his life. First of all yes the track is a headbanger. But people people people. What makes Jay one of the best rappers to ever live is his LYRICS. His ability to paint street life with a few broad strokes of his tongue.

Once again I gotta let y’all peep more lyrics from the lyrical street genius known as Jay Hova: “I said when I got to one brick then the GAME I would depart, but got to one brick and then I looked to the sky, Like sorry God but give me just one more try, got to TWO bricks, NEW CARS NEW WHIPS!, but nig$^z never learn till they wind up in the NEWS clips, THE IRONY OF SELLING DRUGS IS THAT IT’S SORT OF LIKE YOU’RE USING IT, GUESS IT’S TWO SIDES TO WHAT SUBSTANCE ABUSE IS….CAN’T STOP, won’t stop ADDICTED to this new s$$$, BRAND NEW CONVERTIBLES..I’m so ruthless!!!..”. OK STOP….stop stop stop stop……..Please reread that line and ask yourself. Who the F%$# can paint such a vivid street picture so effortlessly? JESUS H CHRIST!!!...Game, set, match man. All those phone calls you hear are the young wannabe street lyricists trying to hire a hit man to take that old a$$ man Jay-Z out cause he’s putting too much artistry into street anarchy. Hands down “Fallin” is one of the best songs Jay-Z has EVER made. Last but not least is “No Hook”. A song I could display at least 3 more entire verses of that exhibit great picture painting but I think y’all got the point “Leave that boy Hov alone why don’t cha?, You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya….Oh…AND I DON’T NEED NO HOOK FOR THIS S^%$!!!!!...”.

So yeah Jay painting us them GRIZZLY, GORY, DISTURBIN’, masterpiece pictures but y’all old school heads wonder if he’s gonna give us more of them raw uncut lyrical offerings. Have no fear. Just skip to “Ignorant S&^$” and you’ll see Jay and Beanie Siegel “spazzing out” as they put the haters in their place. Call it a 2007 “Cuss Words” as Jay-Z brings Too Short back to life with a classic chorus: “This is that ignorant s%^$ you like, N$%$#a, F%$#, S&^%, A$$, B&^%$^, S&^%$,…”….Well the chorus kind of speaks for itself…..“Cuss words just let ‘em roll…” (Big up to Too Short!!..Hiphop Hall of Fame Member). Jay gives it to the critics on this song PERFECTLY as at the end of this song he points out what I constantly bring up to the “holier than though” Quentin Tarantino type fans who bash gangsta rappers. That point is that WAY MORE DAMAGE TO KIDS’ PSYCHE IS DONE THROUGH THE VISUAL (MOVIES) THAN IN MUSIC.

As a former drug dealer, Jay sums it up best with this verse “SCARFACE THE MOVIE DID WAY MORE TO ME THAN SCARFACE THE RAPPER DID TO ME SO LET’S STOP THE BULLS%$^^ING…TILL WE ALL WITHOUT SIN LET’S QUIT THE PULPITTING..”. As great as that song is it can’t hold a candle to the Pharell collaboration on “Blue Magic”. P hits dude up with one of his sickest tracks ever. Once again I gotta let Jay’s lyrics do the talking “Can’t you tell that I came from the dope game?, Blame Reagan for making me into a MONSTER, Blame Oliver North when I ran CONTRA, I RAN CONTRABAND THAT THEY SPONSORED, before this rhyming stuff we was in concert….”. Damn!!! Clipse and Mobb Deep eat your heart out. Y’all my boyz but NO ONE can make crime sound so poetic. They should outlaw Jay’s lyrics in like 50 states cause he makes crime sound so good even though he’s just reflecting on what he used to do. Thank god music is not as influential as the critics make it out to be or I’d be on the street corner RIGHT F&^%$# NOW!!! Nah just buggin out. Continuing on with Jay’s ROAD TO THE CHAMPIONSHIOP is “Say Hello” that has Jay spitting more biting social commentary: “We ain’t thugs for the sake of being thugs…We ain’t doing crime for the sake of doing crime, We moving dimes CAUSE WE AIN’T DOING FINE, 1 out of 3 of us is locked up doing time, You know what that type of s$$$ can do to a nig%$z mind…Y’all ain’t give me my 40 acres and a mule, so I got my Glock 9 now and I’m cool….Tell them I’ll remove the curses, if you tell me our schools gonna be perfect, when JENA SIX DON’T EXIST, THAT’S WHEN I’LL STOP SAYING B$$$$...B&^%$#!!!!”. Whoa!!!!!! Damn Jay!! You coming back hard!! Say what though? Nas got a cameo on here too? I almost forgot!!! Nas repays the favor that Jay gave him and reps on the album too!!

The bases are loaded and the Red Sox are ready to win the World Series and here comes Nas delivering an out of the park homerun on “Success”. This song is straight grimy, underground as the beat is something DJ Premiere would make and Jay and Nas just give us that nasty, car grease, toxin filled fluid flow that has Jay having bowel movements on the song and Nas spewing out classic descriptions as he calls himself the “GHETTO ORTHELLO’. Now that’s nice Nas!! Capping off the lyrical assault is a masterpiece Jay saved as his last song on the album, “AMERICAN GANGSTER”. This song lies to rest any doubt who the best MC in the game is. The only way to describe this song is to just imagine yourself skating while simultaneously holding two AK-47’s in your hands and rhyming lyrics that are just tearing your competition a new backside….This song thankfully gives us more of that patented Jay-Z rapid fire flow that defined Jay before people even knew who he was. Thank you Jay for bringing back that rapid-fire flow!!

Now there’s TWO things Jay-Z can never leave you without. That’s an ode to Brooklyn and of course some smooth s$%^ that even your grandma can vibe to. First let’s address two classic smooth joints that Jay now proudly trots out in front of us in lieu of the tired, cookie-cutter club bangers. “I Know” and “Party Life” gets the house party started RIGHT!! “Party Life” is some more Al Green like smoothness that you just sit back and zone out to. “I Know” is the ode to the ladies that you know Jay had to give the ladies as he’s an expert at that type of stuff. But don’t confuse this for a corny R&B song. This is a soulful artistic offering that EVEN hardcore Benz0 can jam to without feelin’ like a sucka. Fueled by a slick mid-tempo beat Jay let’s the ladies know what they SHOULD like.

Again I’m not against smoothness, Benz0 is all for genuine funkiness that’s more than just the cookie-cutter “baby I love you” BS that permeates today’s R&B climate. I dig the old school R&B sound. It’s the BS new school, “I love you baby”, BS with no artistic merit that I’m against. Jay gets it right by using nothing but the smooth O’Jay’s type music to be the background of his ode to the ladies. Again Jay can’t leave us without an ode to Brooklyn. Kanye West tried to collab with Lil’ Wayne on “Barry Bonds” with less than stellar results. Enter Big Brother to get the Lil Wayne Collabo right. “Hello Brooklyn” is PURE GENIUS as Lil Wayne comes off lovely as he sings the chorus like only Lil Wayne can do as Jay brings up the rear with poignant praises to BROOKLYN!!!...The place that made him into one of the best artists of the twenty first century.

This album is EVERYTHING that Kanye West’s new album SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Yes Kanye once again showed off his genius on his newest album that contained 4 or 5 songs that were just out of this world but it was INCOMPLETE at best. BIG BROTHER JAY-Z comes in and LITERALLY KICKS KANYE’S A$$ ON THIS ALBUM. It’s a NO CONTEST on which album is better and in fact Jay-Z has just given us ALBUM OF THE YEAR hands down. I have not heard an album better than this one in 2007. Sorry T.I. Sorry Kanye. Sorry 50.

But Jay-Z has just reminded us of why he’s the best rapper not named Tupac or Biggie. Big Brother done came through and kicked EVERYONE’S a$$!!!!!!!!!! Not only that. This album is one of the best he’s EVER done. It’ll take more than this article for us to debate if this album is his greatest ever but let’s just say it’s easily one of his top three albums he’s EVER made. Even more beautiful is that it came out of nowhere. Usually the best albums are those that come out of no where like E-40’s album last year. Thank you Jay for somehow, some way dipping back into more of that ‘Blue Magic” of yours. The best rapper alive has just served notice….

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com