AR: The Black Album

Jay-Z - The Black Album (2003)

Having reviewed the White and with the Grey in the queue (by Frankian request), the necessary step is to review the Black to get my palette in order. The Black Album is Jay-Z's 2003 "farewell" album, a closing act that turned out to be a few shades shy of Brett Favre on the dishonest retirement scale. Jay-Z would go on to do more solo work (DUH, unless you haven't been around a television or a radio or a gym or any of the bajillion places that have blared "Empire State of Mind" the past few months), but his magnanimous legacy had already been well sealed in 2003. Had this indeed been his curtain call, it would have been an epic exit - not only did he bring out ten producers to supply his varied anthemic beats, he churned out a biopic that retread the ground of his "rags to riches" story in gigantic, quasi-presidential-memoirs fashion. It's the rare case of braggadocio backed up by performance - Jay-Z is certainly not one lacking ego or an overdeveloped sense of scale, but the flow/rhythm/witticisms here are in top form. It's just a great rap record, one of his best with or without the years that followed, and a grandiose performance to match the mythic figure behind it. While it (intentionally) is not dripping with the singles of some of his other efforts, it is top to bottom solid with few weak moments, and a quartet of lead songs that stand up with the canon of hip-hop classics.

One thing that's exceedingly nice about this hip-hop album is what it lacks: skits. Far be it from me to criticize a genre convention, but even some of the pinnacle achievements of rap are littered with minute and a half comedy fillers that miss way more often than they hit (and even when they hit are good for a laugh only the first few listens). Jay-Z doesn't waste time there at all, just hits the beats and songs, a great move imho. The album does stick to other epic hip-hop event conventions: it begins with a minute and a half fade-in intro and ends on the obligatory name-checking extended outro. But neither of these feels tacked on. The former is a smooth electronic piece that introduces the themes of finality via spoken word sentiment. The latter works as a kiss-goodbye song in its own stead, serving less as film credits than closure. I struggle to review hip-hop albums because it's not really my home musical territory*, but this album scores points with me from the get-go for dodging some of the more cumbersome traits of the form.

* - For the obvious reasons - see "white suburbanite Texan," etc. - but also because I really didn't get into hip-hop at all until about 2002 or so, and constantly feel like I'm missing things or being over susceptible to hooks. I mean, sure, in the '90s I heard the singles, and I was familiar with youthful masters of ceremony and knew whom the ladies love, but sitting down with whole hip-hop albums didn't really happen until post Tuftsmen years.

The first song proper, "December 4th," is one of the more preposterous songs out there. It's all the more impressive for being pulled off in spite of its ridiculousness. "12.4" starts with Jay-Z's mom talking about his birth, including how much he weighed (10 pounds 8 oz.) and that he "was the only one of [her] five children who did not cause [her] pain at birth." Right ... unclear whether he rode his blue ox to kindergarten, too. These biographical snippets are interspersed with Jay-Z's own account of his drug-dealing early years and move to the rap industry - all of this is delivered over a lush strings and girl group Specter-ish backing that is hilariously big in scope. It's hard to know what to say about this - the whole endeavor is Mt. Olympus over-the-top, but it somehow works. Apparently bad-assness transcends cheese - who knew? The song is followed by "What More Can I Say," another Motown-Soul-backed "I'm the best" diatribe that winds down to the retirement threat. The track opens with lines from friggin' Gladiator, as though the "larger than life" label needed even more emphasis. The track kills, and the two together serve as a huge opening to the disc.

There are two other giant numbers on the disc. At track 6, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" uses a Timbaland futuristic synthesized club beat to drive a pulsing ego-number with a sick chorus. This song would be memorable enough on its own, but the fact that its signature "move" was referenced by arguably somebody bigger than the HOVA himself during the primaries:

has pretty much entrenched this as a hip-hop classic. Try to leave those analytic thoughts about the President "feelin' like a pimp" aside; the defiant sense of rolling with punches is the meat here.

The other stellar track on The Black Album is the fantastic (if misogynist*) "99 Problems." Perhaps the only rap song that meets Bruce Dickinson's cowbell requirements, this is a booming rap-rock tune that throws impressive wordcraft over Billy Squier's thunderous power chord samples. The first verse starts the insanity: "I got the rap patrol on the gat patrol / Foes that wanna make sure my casket's closed / Rap critics they say he's "Money Cash Hoes" / I'm from the hood, stupid, what type of facts are those? / If you grew up with holes in your zapatos / You'd be celebrating the minute you was havin' dough." Tight! The second verse gives an account of a DWB incident; it's brilliant and worth citing in its entirety:

The year's '94 and my trunk is raw / In my rear view mirror is the mother fuckin' law / I got two choices y'all pull over the car or (hmmm) / Bounce on the double put the pedal to the floor / Now I ain't tryin' to see no highway chase with Jay / Plus I got a few dollars i can fight the case / So I...pull over to the side of the road / I heard "Son do you know why I'm stoppin' you for?" / 'Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low? / Do I look like a mind reader sir, I don't know / Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo'? / "Well you was doin fifty-five in a fifty-fo'/ License and registration and step out of the car / Are you carryin' a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are" / I ain't steppin out of shit, all my paper's legit / "Well, do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?" / Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk in the back / And I know my rights, so you gon' need a warrant for that / "Aren't you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or somethin'? / Or somebody important or somethin'?" / Nah, I ain't pass the bar but i know a little bit / Enough that you won't illegally search my shit / "We'll see how smart you are when the K9 come" / I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one.

He does seem to be assuming that the K9 will be male, but we'll let it slide; it's a smoking dialog and one of my favorite rap verses ever. "99 Problems" is buried on side two but is the cream of the album, imho.

* - Of course, this would be instance number 137529 of the term "bitch" being thrown about to refer to women generally, a questionable trend in the rap vernacular and one that will always make me cringe on some level. The "misogynist vocabulary as term of endearment" oddly gets a little clarification in this tune, as Jay-Z later refers to another "'ho" but then clarifies crudely "not a 'ho in the sense of having a pussy / but a pussy having no goddamn sense." It turns out he's not talking about a woman at all, but a all-bark-no-bite gangster (whom he later refers to as "he.") Still, clearly no feminist ground is being broken here, and you'd be justified if you wanted to dismiss the whole work on the basis of those lines alone. Jay-Z appeared with Phish in Brooklyn a few years back, and there was quite a buzz about the hippies from Vermont bringing a lyrical misogynist up to share the love and fun stage. I'm still not entirely sure where the right place to stand is - as I have mentioned with e.g. G'n'R, it seems that one can divorce condoning the attitude while appreciating the artistic depiction of that very attitude. That's pretty slippery ground to tread on, though. So maybe the real point of bring this up is buyer-beware: Jay-Z engages in a lot of the unpleasantries of hip-hop, though not as much as some, and if that will perturb you then you should steer clear.

There are plenty of other highlights - the Kanye-produced "Encore" is an invigorating live-sounding horn-backed number that includes the claim that Jay-Z is "rap's Grateful Dead" as well as a mention of "when I come back like Jordan, wearing 45" which sort of contradicts the whole "closing act" claim (and is an awesome in-the-know reference to MJ's 1996 jersey number). "Public Service Announcement" is shwank effrontery, and as mentioned, the closing track "My 1st Song" is a rhythmically intricate sly-off over a reverbing guitar line. "Justify My Thug" samples Madonna (!!!) as Jay invokes his former imposing persona, and "Lucifer" dances all over a Jamaican sample that evokes steel drums without even using them. I'll refrain from writing a sentence about every track, but really, what I'm leaving off as "non-highlights" are all solid work with rich beats, too.

That's really an apt phrase - The Black Album is "rich." Lots of varied styles going on, all serving the same general "I'm the best ever, goodbye" narrative, all immediate and memorable. The variety of stars producing for Jay-Z here definitely enforce the "this is royalty" atmosphere. And there's a reason Jay-Z's king: he raps with a voice that is very upfront, easily understood and adorned with all kinds of clever quips and turns of phrase. He was (and certainly thought he was) the best in this era, and at least part of his power sits neatly in this ability to be accessible to even non-hip-hop fans. With the thorough qualification that I probably *am* one of those non-hip-hop fans, this is a great, thoroughly enjoyable hip-hop album, an appropriate send-off for one of the genre's artistic giants, even if it didn't turn out to be the real last verse. Definitely worth your time.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "99 Problems"

Oh, and I can't help myself - this joke was suggested by Nyet as a slogan for the ASU Center for Biology and Society. It was, natch, rejected: