Jay-Z - Brooklyn's Finest

I’m representin’ for the seat where Rosa Parks sat
Where Malcolm X was shot, where Martin Luther was popped
So off we go, let the trumpets blow
And hold on, because the driver of the mission is a pro
The ruler’s back

With "Takeover," the rivalry with Prodigy and Nas flares back up over an all-time great Kanye West production, built on a distorted funk groove and an acidic electric guitar commenting in the background, splicing together the Doors' "5 To 1" with KRS-One's "Sound Of Da Police." The lead single "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," another piece of West magic sampling the Jackson 5, closes out an exceptional opening trio, with Jay-Z able to calmly declare himself free of Notorious B.I.G. and Nas, perfectly at ease in a new east-coast sound that, smooth and supple, pairs beautifully with a silky, confiding flow — seductive when it needs to be ("Girls, Girls, Girls") and festive too ("Jigga That Nigga"). The flawless rapping on "U Don't Know" is hip-hop's equivalent of an Eddie Van Halen solo, every bit as spectacular, precise, and seemingly effortless as only a true giant of the rhyme could pull off. When he flexes hardcore-hip-hop muscle on the futuristic "Never Change," he does it to reaffirm that he's still the same Shawn Carter from the debut, but in truth he seems to be revealing himself for the first time, more resolute and in command of his craft, capable even of sentimentality, as on "Song Cry." When Eminem steps in too, on "Renegade," as both rapper and producer — at the time arguably the most famous artist in the world — he doesn't steal the show; if anything, he proves they're playing in the same exclusive league, that of the possible GOATs (greatest-of-all-times). Worth noting among the finest punchlines: at the very least, "No lie, just know I chose my own fate/ I drove by the fork in the road and went straight."

Afterward, even given the golden run he's enjoying as both rapper and celebrity, he puts out too much material to avoid overindulgence. Jay-Z: Unplugged (2001) is part of MTV's famous series. It's an enjoyable live record, and he's a rhyme virtuoso, but in this hip-hop performed with the help of The Roots it's easy to sense a touch of self-satisfaction, as well as a renewed wink toward the rock world. What follows is not one but two collaborative albums, released in 2002 and 2004, with R. Kelly, in keeping with a corporate-style strategy aimed at covering every corner of the music market, including the one tied to more traditional Black sounds.

The solo return The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse (2002) simply indulges too much and edits too little: 112 minutes of music across 25 tracks is excessive and risks diluting the memorable moments, of which there's still no shortage. One can perhaps overlook the idea of taking a masterpiece verse by Notorious B.I.G. and turning it into melodrama, as on the opening "A Dream," and even the guest appearance by his majesty Rakim and the great Dr. Dre, wasted on a trifle like "The Watcher 2," and move straight on to "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" (featuring Beyoncé), a perfect pop-rap song produced by Kanye West with a Cajun touch. It may be Beyoncé's showstopping voice, the outlaw-romance imagery, or the masterful video, but this track marks a true before-and-after for pop-rap worldwide, helps turn Jay-Z into a rapstar even here in Italy, and launches Beyoncé into the pop pantheon she'd been destined for since her Destiny's Child days. Hot on its heels comes "Excuse Me Miss," a massively successful single that epitomizes The Neptunes' sound, and thus also one of the pop-rap singles of the year. Then there's a pause for "The Bounce," with Kanye West rapping over a Timbaland production, in one of his very first appearances behind the mic. It's also intriguing that a track called "Guns & Roses" features guitar from Lenny Kravitz, in another clear attempt to reach a rock audience. The ideal closer is the all-star "As One" (featuring Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Young Gunz, Peedi Crakk, Sparks and Rell), which once again presents Jay-Z as the label boss bringing talent together.

Evidently dissatisfied with the excesses of the double album, Jay-Z tries to make amends with The Blueprint 2.1 (2003), a more modest 17-track effort that trims down the original (though it should have been done from the start!) and adds a few forgettable new cuts.

Once again Jay-Z made hip-hop history, and once again he overdid it in his urge to wring every last drop out of his creativity. If Reasonable Doubt, conceived as the first and last album of his career, is completely lacking in any sense of overarching design, the trilogy that followed it, plus the pair of releases from the start of the new millennium, along with countless side-branches and parallel developments, make it genuinely hard to trace a coherent artistic path over the long run. Luckily, Jay-Z is a giant of hip-hop, and despite the inconsistency and lack of clarity running through so many of his releases, he still manages to reward his listeners' patience.

2003 – 2005: The Black Album and the “retirement”

Spurred on by yet another declaration of retirement, and by the claim that the next record would be his last – absolute last – album, along comes the eighth The Black Album (2003). Spoiler alert: he'll be back in 2006, he never really stops being active in the meantime, and in the end hardly anyone truly believes he's going to hang up the mic for good. The production roster is a parade of exceptional names, from Rick Rubin to Kanye West, by way of Timbaland, The Neptunes and Eminem. This time there are 14 tracks for a total of just over 55 minutes, evidence of a hard-won but finally achieved return to concision.
Jay-Z tells his own story, both different and the same as on Reasonable Doubt, starting with "December 4th", which even features his mother Gloria Carter, switching up flow, producer and style on every track, turning The Black Album into a showcase of technique and eclecticism.
There's room for the supremely stylish "Change Clothes", with Pharrell Williams on second vocals and Neptunes production building a track made for dancing, but also for the more aggressive "Dirt Off Your Shoulder", riding a frantic, obsessive Timbaland beat scarred by synth smears, and not even a return to the classic sound, as on "Threat", shows any sign of strain.
Compared to his early days, Shawn Carter is now able to reread his own life with a different kind of maturity ("Moment Of Clarity") and is able to play with words and their possible interpretations, even stirring up a bit of controversy for publicity's sake: a case in point is the now-famous line that opens "99 Problems", "If you’re havin’ girl problems, I feel bad for you, son/ I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one", which is accused of sexism but is also used to refer to the police's drug-sniffing dogs ("bitches" in English slang). As proof of just how famous the line became, it was even quoted in an official speech by President Barack Obama.

The production is handled by Rick Rubin, who slots distorted electric guitars into the track, almost as a nod to his spectacular résumé spanning hip-hop and rock.
Had it been the end of his career, The Black Album – which would go on to sell over three million copies in the US alone and rack up 5 platinum singles – would have worked as a proud display of creative eclecticism, the ideal way to bow out while still at the peak of his powers and avoid decline. Instead…

In 2004 came the brief mash-up experiment with Linkin Park, Collision Course, which ruined both artists' songs and wasn't even particularly fun. Danger Mouse had done better a few months earlier, splicing Jay-Z's latest album together with the Beatles' self-titled record to create the curious "The Grey Album". After that, talk turned to Shawn Carter's role in the end of Roc-A-Fella and his rise to the presidency of Def Jam: he's temporarily out of the game, but he never strays far.

2006 – 2007: the return of the American Gangster

The inevitable (?) comeback, which sells over a million and a half copies, goes by the name of Kingdom Come (2006). Critics greet it with more than a few reservations, Shawn Carter himself calls it his worst work, and the comparison with the previous album is entirely unflattering. The anguished "Minority Report", which tells of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, nonetheless shows an intent to break free from the unreal, cinematic persona of old. There's even talk of releasing the record under the name Shawn Carter, but in the end he sticks with Jay-Z so as not to confuse fans and, probably, to avoid risking disappointing sales.

Cinematic references come roaring back on American Gangster (2007), conceived as a music-companion piece to Ridley Scott's film of the same year. Serious and dramatic ("Pray", "No Hook"), more Seventies-inflected than ever ("American Dreamin'", "Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)"), even blatantly vintage ("Party Life"), it features a duet with Nas ("Success") and a guest spot from Lil Wayne that feels significant in its own way, in hindsight almost a passing of the torch. It's nothing more than yet another chapter of self-mythologizing, but after the misstep of Kingdom Come, it seems fair to say that Jay-Z, though not especially inspired, is back on track.

2008 – 2011: conquering pop (and rock)

Deep down, on many fronts Jay-Z's career has been a success, except for one. He managed to carve out a place for himself in the already-mythologized east-coast scene, and later found a way to reinvent his own sound, indirectly shaping a large swath of early-2000s hip-hop. He made Beyoncé's worldwide success his own, Beyoncé who would go on to become first his partner and then, in 2008, his wife, and he paved the way for superstars like Kanye West. He founded Roc-A-Fella and racked up one triumph after another, to the point of being chosen as president of Def Jam. He's sold millions upon millions of albums, becoming hugely famous at home and, later and with a bit less fanfare, across the rest of the world.
The one blemish on this otherwise triumphant résumé is that he has yet to fully win over the pop and rock crowd, the ones still tied to guitars and solos. Sure, there was the collaboration with Linkin Park, but the result was negligible both in quantity and quality, and aimed at an audience that wasn't all that far removed from hip-hop's own.
"Played" music – somewhat conservative, predominantly white – still sees Jay-Z as an outsider. It's no surprise, then, that when his appearance at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival was announced, the backlash poured in: what's someone who can't even play guitar doing at a rock festival, his detractors cried? Among the harshest critics was Noel Gallagher of Oasis, to whom Jay-Z would dedicate a deliberately parodic version of "Wonderwall".

It's precisely through an intense run of live shows that Shawn Carter tries to rewrite hip-hop's role at major international live events, where it still lags well behind rock, pop and metal. In other words, and with a touch of cynicism, we might say that with the record market now running dry, Jay-Z needs to find a new way to make his millions, and as the businessman he is, he understands that the future lies in events and ticket revenue.
He also senses that rock, as an aesthetic galaxy with its own reference points and rituals, is on the wane, giving way to an increasingly global hip-hop poised to become the Esperanto of the 2010s and 2020s. Jay-Z naturally wants to reach the top of this hierarchy still in the making, and to do so he has to conquer rock's strongholds, including the big international festivals.
That conquest also comes through parting ways with Def Jam and striking new deals with Live Nation, as well as launching new business ventures, even on Broadway. An album also arrives to mark this transitional moment, but it's The Blueprint 3 (2009), and it doesn't exactly amount to a revolution, either for Jay-Z or, for that matter, for hip-hop.

Its historical importance lies in its willingness to break free from its genre of origin, slotting an electric guitar into "D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)" and rejecting the famous pitch-correction software, loathed by rock audiences and often blamed as one of the chief flaws of hip-hop at the time.
It's also a chance to hear Rihanna and Kanye West join the man himself on "Run This Town", driving forward the fledgling Roc Nation label, owned by Mr. Carter, or to enjoy once more the vintage elegance of his early days with "Empire State Of Mind", a gorgeous piano-rap gem bejewelled by Alicia Keys's voice.
Further confirming his drive to go global, there's also a collaboration with Drake, featured on the frenetic "Off That", but there's also time to edge closer to the near future of ubiquitous trap with futuristic productions like "Hate", while simultaneously indulging in nostalgia on the closing "Young Forever", which quotes Alphaville.
Overall, though, it almost feels like a compilation gathering together tracks with very different aims and results, a snapshot of an artist still working out where his long career will ultimately land. Without matching the triumphs of the past, the album still goes platinum at home and, even more notably, in the UK and Canada too. The singles, confirming once again that they work better than the album as a whole, are the real triumph: "Run This Town" racks up 5 platinum certifications across various countries, "Empire State Of Mind" a whopping 8, including one in New Zealand.

Let's also take this chance to briefly run through the highlights and key moments of Jay-Z as a guest on other artists' tracks: from his early triumphs like Foxy Brown's "I'll Be" (1997) and Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker" (1999), to the landmark success of "Crazy In Love" (2003) with his future wife Beyoncé. The 2006–2007 stretch is simply unrepeatable: first "Déjà Vu" with his girlfriend, then the worldwide smash "Umbrella" (12 platinum certifications!). Circling back to the main narrative, there's also his guest spot on Kanye West's masterpiece "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010), on the crowded track "Monster" (also featuring Rick Ross, Bon Iver and Nicki Minaj). Also worth mentioning are the tours undertaken with other artists, in particular the event-shows with Eminem on the short-lived "The Home & Home Tour" (2010) and the support slot for U2 in Australia and New Zealand (also 2010).

These very collaborations lay the groundwork for an undertaking like Watch The Throne (2011), a collaborative album with Kanye West that outweighs, in sheer significance, everything Shawn Carter had done before as sole man in charge.
The guest list is long and star-studded, and the album helps make sense of both men's careers at a pivotal moment for each. Kanye West is at his most chaotically creative, while Jay-Z is desperately searching for some peace of mind after returning to the scene, a calm harbor for the adult phase of his career. That balance is struck on the bombastic single "Niggas In Paris" (12 platinum certifications!), which, stripping Shawn Carter of the persona that's been written and rewritten one too many times, brings him back to simply being a virtuoso of the rhyme.
Just as comfortable in more classic territory, like "New Day" and "Murder To Excellence", Jay-Z also proves he can go toe-to-toe with the mechanical violence of "Who Gon Stop Me" and the trap sound of "H•A•M".
The public, by now thoroughly won over by years of savvy marketing moves combined with undeniable talent, responds with enormous enthusiasm: it sells more digital copies than any other album, snatching the record from Coldplay (a record Lil Wayne would claim for himself three weeks later, but that's another story…); it tops Billboard, by now familiar territory for Jay-Z; it sells 5 million copies in the US alone, going platinum in the UK, Canada and Australia as well.

2012 – 2021: the billionaire, philandering businessman

In 2012, Jay-Z could collaborate with artists of international standing like M.I.A. on "XXXO", and become the curator of an annual festival, "Budweiser Made In America", then duet onstage with Rihanna and join Coldplay for the year-end concert in Brooklyn.
His celebrity is further fuelled by a cameo on Justin Timberlake's hugely anticipated "The 20/20 Experience" (2013), after which he becomes Timberlake's co-headliner on the "Legends Of The Summer Stadium Tour" (2013). Almost secondary by comparison is the arrival of the album Magna Carta... Holy Grail (2013), which mostly serves as a self-referential showcase for Shawn Carter now that he's finally reached the top of the (pop-)rap game.
The packaging is flawless, but there's really not much Jay-Z can say about himself without repeating what's already been said. He can show he's able to do a Lil Wayne impression on "Tom Ford", or keep tinkering with old-school hip-hop ("Picasso Baby", "Somewhereinamerica", "Versus") while simultaneously jumping on the trap bandwagon ("F*ckwithmeyouknowigotit" with Rick Ross; "Beach Is Better"; "La Familia").
Predictably, it's another commercial triumph: two million copies sold and 5 platinum singles. It racks up 9 Grammy nominations, but wins only for the Justin Timberlake collaboration, proof that by now his fame precedes him and counts for more than his actual output. As partial compensation, or perhaps adding insult to injury, the duet "Drunk In Love" with his wife Beyoncé sweeps the board, earning her a full three Grammys.

By this point in his career, music is no longer the most important part of Jay-Z's public life — his relationship with Beyoncé is. Having met through their collaboration on "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", the two kept trading guest spots until they married in 2008. Already named the world's most influential couple by Time in 2006, they're ranked by Forbes at the top of its list of the planet's wealthiest couples: together they've earned 162 million dollars.
In 2011, in front of the cameras, she announces she's expecting a daughter, sending the internet into a frenzy: the before, during and after of Blue Ivy's birth become global events not unlike the birth of an heir to a colonial throne. To put it in perspective, this extreme exposure, this unhealthy, obsessive interest, is also the template for our own — alas — reference couple on the web, the Ferragnez (yes, with due proportion). Everything private becomes a little more public, aestheticised and poured out on social media, including traumatic, delicate events like a miscarriage, or domestic trivia like the newborn's crying, immortalised on the self-celebratory single "Glory". They'll do it again with the birth of twins in 2017, this time keeping things more private.

Meanwhile, Jay-Z cheats on Beyoncé, the relationship goes through a crisis, she becomes a banner-carrier for contemporary female empowerment, and on "Lemonade" (2016), an album-as-event accompanied by a film, the intertwining of private and public perversely titillates the tabloids.

A year later it's Jay-Z's turn to feed his private life to 4:44 (2017), hailed by the press as yet another rebirth and another album-event. The relationship psychodrama is initially offered only on the streaming platform Tidal, naturally owned by Shawn Carter, and on Sprint.
Having told his own story countless times already, this time Jay-Z tries to let the person hidden behind the persona come through. The most "conscious" album of his career shines at least on "The Story Of O.J.", but overall it's appreciated for stripping away the typical hip-hop braggadocio in favour of a more humble narrative, as the track "4:44" sums up well.
Having reached a million copies sold at home, 4:44 lacks the restless tension that ran through much of Jay-Z's career: it's an adult album, if not outright a wise one, written by a rapper and a man who has finally convinced himself he no longer has anything to prove to anyone. In an ideal world, it could even serve as the closing chapter of his long career — a personal confession where his debut was an aestheticised tale.

The fact that Jay-Z is mainly Beyoncé's husband is confirmed by the fact that, having formed the duo The Carters with his wife, he released Everything Is Love (2018). After all, Shawn Carter is clearly the lesser-represented half, and the conversations between the two feel better suited to gossip columns than to music history.
The trap elements are predictable, amid compositions that nonetheless know how to veer into jazz and soul too. The core of it all, though, lies entirely in the story of the couple, their power and their wealth, so that any other message gets crushed under their cumbersome, self-celebratory egocentrism. Perhaps the only track that will endure is "Summer", an elegant Beyoncé ballad with her husband serving as a diversion.

In 2021 he'll be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame as a performer, alongside Tina Turner, Carole King, The Go-Go's, Foo Fighters and Todd Rundgren: it's the latest proof of a sweeping, consolidated success, incredible and thrilling when you consider he was born in public housing and abandoned by his father almost immediately. Shawn Carter has thus lived out the hip-hop dream to the fullest, from his first rhymes to full albums, from his first dollars to his first billion (!), from being a complete unknown to becoming the superstar husband of one of the most powerful women in the world. By now it doesn't even matter that he's not exactly a male model, because, as he himself puts it in "Family Feud", "Ain't no such thing as an ugly billionaire, I'm cute".

Since 2012 he's been less and less active as a musician, and nothing released since his 2006 comeback can match the best of his first ten years as an artist, but he remains to this day one of the most important rappers alive. Beyond any reasonable doubt.