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Tag: Jay-Z

  • Blueprint 3 Track Listing: This Could Be Good!!

    Jay-Z. Photo by "iamguilty".
    Jay-Z. Photo by

    Hip-hop heads have been buzzing about two major releases scheduled for the end of 2008-Kanye West’s “808’s & Heartbreak” (is it really a hip-hop album if Kanye doesn’t rap?) and Jay-Z’s Def Jam finale “Blueprint 3”, which is rumored to have been produced almost in it’s entirety by West.

    An alleged tracklisting for BP3 has surfaced on the net, and although its’ validity is being questioned, there might be something to be hopeful about if this track listing *is* in fact real. Namely the fact that the awful first single, “Jockin’ Jay-Z” and the T.I./Kanye/Lil’ Wayne collabo “Swagga Like Us” are NOT on the album (again, allegedly). Could Jay be throwing a red herring at us before hitting us with an album that captures the soulful, mature vibe of the first “Blueprint” album? While I don’t think “BP1” was a super-legendary classic (actually, I don’t even think it’s Jay’s best or even second best album), it would be nice to hear him making music reminiscent of that era. Because “American Gangster”, despite being jocked by everyone else, didn’t exactly move me.

    Anyhoo, here’s the (alleged) track listing. Man, I’m using that word so much you’d think I was writing an article about R. Kelly!!

    01. Wake Up New York (Intro)
    02. Most Kings
    03. Hades (Lucifer Pt. II)
    04. Eternal Jewels (ft. Jay Electronica) [prod. by Jay Electronica]
    05. Blueprint 3
    06. Lucy (ft. Chris Martin)
    07. The Audacity of Dope
    08. Swagger Like Us Pt. 2 (ft. Nas, Andre 3000, and Young Jeezy)
    09. Election Night (We believe in Obama)
    10. Just Memories
    11. Apostate (ft. Eminem) [prod. by Eminem]
    12. Oasis
    13. My Brothers Keeper (ft. Scarface)
    14. Brooklyn Lost
    15. Weeds & Concrete
    16. Without Rain

  • “Jockin’ Jay-Z”: Mmm…Not So Much

    I love Jay-Z. There’s a lot to be said for the guy’s business acumen. From releasing his debut in 1996 on an independent label to serving as the president of Def Jam and owning everything from vodka brands to clothing lines, the man has definitely parlayed the little he was given into a hell of a lot.

    Plus, the guy’s talented as shit. Unfortunately, a problem that’s plagued him since the beginning of his career is that he’s like the smart kid in class who is going to get “A”s and “B”s regardless, but doesn’t really apply himself. He doesn’t really challenge himself and the end result is that you end up with a talented kid turning in mediocre work. That’s Jay in a nutshell. For every “99 Problems” or “Kingdom Come” (the song, not the album), there’s something like “Blue Magic” or…well, half of “The Blueprint 2”.

    …and the first leaked track from the upcoming “Blueprint 3” (Jay’s last before he departs Def Jam for Live Nation and a shitload of greeenbacks) is a shining example of a great rapper making shitty records. First off, considering Jay is pushing 40 and sitting in executive suites, it’s time to stop thinking that his art has any sort of resonance with young kids in urban communities. He’s out of touch. It’s time to grow his sound and his lyrics up a little, something that he showed a glimmer of on both “The Black Album” and “Kingdom Come”. I think “Kingdom”‘s relative failure rattled Jay a bit, because he seems to have regressed lyrically. The braggadocio and hustling talk needs to be put to a stop. Period.

    Thankfully, there’s a delightfully minimalist Kanye West beat to keep the song from being completely unlistenable. However, this song does not bode well for Jay’s Def Jam swan song.

  • New Music Revue: Nas’s “Untitled”

    Sometimes it’s hard to separate artistry from publicity. I was recently involved in a healthy debate regarding whether Amy Winehouse’s success is due to her artistry or the fact that she’s a walking, talking trainwreck (I vote for the former). The fact of the matter, though, is that in an environment when record sales are falling and record companies are scrambling to make their bottom line and justify their extravagant expenditures, artists are relying more and more on publicity stunts to keep their names in the headlines, which ends up putting true music fans in a bind, unable to separate the artist and the artistry from the celebrity.

    This is one of two reasons I was initially skeptical about the untitled (or self-titled, depending on how you look at it) ninth studio album by the rapper Nas (or NaS, as iTunes annoyingly lists his name). As anyone who has even a remote interest in popular music must know, a mild furor arose when Nas announced what he intended to originally call the album: “Nigger”. In a hyper-sensitive world where the media seems to pounce on every available opportunity to create division and drama, a simple word/album title turned into a political football (interesting that no one batted an eyelash when Ol’ Dirty Bastard titled an album “Nigga Please” less than a decade ago). Various stories began circulating around the press: was Nas going to get dropped from Def Jam, his label? Would certain stores not carry the album if released? Why was the album’s release date continually getting pushed back? Why did Nas rip off the whip-welt scarred back cover of dead prez’s “Let’s Get Free” for the front cover of his album? Ultimately, Nas chose (or was asked, depending on who you believe) to change the title of the album-well, actually the decision ended up being not to title the album at all. I’ve viewed this whole situation with a cocked eyebrow, amazed at the ability of the average rap fan to buy in to what was obviously (at least partially) a publicity stunt milked to raise maximum awareness of the album’s release (as it turns out, the gambit didn’t exactly work. While the album debuted at #1 on this week’s album charts, it did so with the lowest first-week sales of any Nas studio album since his debut).

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