![]() Even when I remove myself from that timeframe by around track five (which of course happens to be “Change Clothes”), I still find myself intrigued by the approach he took with this album. Even a few who were anti-Jay Z knew the genre was losing something huge. For many, it it was one of hip-hop’s greatest songwriters. For Jay Z diehards, it was the King of New York. ![]() But even the hypothetical event of Jay Z’s leaving had people thinking what would be lost. She said no, but echoed what a lot of fans were thinking-and hoped-was the case. I was an 11-year-old Nas fan growing up in Brooklyn when word of Jay Z’s retirement was buzzing, the “99 Problems” video in which he catches bullets was making rounds, and I was sitting in my room listening to Hot 97 trying to comprehend when I loved “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” so much.Īround that time, Missy Elliott appeared on TRL and was asked if she felt Jay Z was going to truly retire. The Black Album as a whole takes me back to 2003 whenever I give it a spin. The floss and flourish of “Change Clothes” still sound prosperous a decade later. Timbaland creates to audio representation of the term “swagger” on “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”. Your offspring (and yours too, readers) will know at least one verse from “99 Problems”. But I do give credit to The Black Album for its immediate bangers that still hits as hard as it did within the context of Jay Z’s grand farewell. The Blueprint eclipses with New Yorker panache, Reasonable Doubt for its intensely detailed lyricism, and on most days I’d even take American Gangster over The Black Album. Even my mom knows half the lyrics.īrian Josephs (BJ): The Black Album is a great album, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of Jay Z’s greatest albums. Rick Rubin could’ve retired after “99 Problems” and he would’ve still gone down as one of the greatest hip-hop producers of all time. It doesn’t have the consistent string of hits that its predecessor had, but “99 Problems”, “Dirt Off Your Shoulders”, and “Change Clothes” will stand as three of Jay’s most remembered and revered songs, while “Lucifer” is easily my favorite song in his catalog and what I believe to be Kanye’s best production before he started getting on the other side of the mic. The Blueprint felt like the moment Jay transitioned from a talented rapper who used to be a drug dealer into a legitimately marketable musician and The Black Album was subsequently the moment he made the jump from musician to aspiring mogul. The Blueprint is chock full of singles, but it’s a real scattershot with songs like “Takeover”, which is a stomping battle cry to all of New York, right next to something playful and radio friendly like “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”. The Black Album has had more staying power for me personally than even The Blueprint, and I think a lot of that has to do with the production. Pat Levy (PL): I’m definitively declaring The Black Album my favorite Jay Z album. It’s also an encapsulation of Black as a whole – big, bold, and lucid. “Lucifer”, with its pithy conceits (“I’m from the murder capital where they murder for capital”) and trampoline Kanye West beat, has always been my favorite song on the album, but there’s no denying that “99 Problems” is the single most iconic track in Jay’s catalog. Black was my personal introduction to Jay, and I think it’s the more accessible album for all Jay neophytes/non-rap fans – as it turned out, the then-obscure producer Danger Mouse would ignite the early-‘00s “mash-up” craze by mixing Black with The Beatles’ White Album, while nu-metal titans Linkin Park followed suit later in 2004, blending their Meteora with Black standouts for the EP Collision Course. But though they were released just two years apart, the two have always struck me as fairly different. I realize this isn’t an unpopular stance. The other days (though never Saturday, because The Blueprint is definitely a Saturday-afternoon album) I say The Black Album. ![]() Mike Madden (MM): Most days, I consider 2001’s The Blueprint my favorite Jay album. The three writers digress on the LP’s status as a definitively New York record, the producers that helped make it so state-of-the-art, and how Jay’s legacy might be different if his final answer to “What More Can I Say?” had been “nothing.” For this edition of Dusting ‘Em Off, Mike Madden, Pat Levy, and Brian Josephs discuss The Black Album, Jay Z’s eighth solo LP, which turns 10 years old this week.
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