1. Can’t Knock the Hustle (feat. Mary J. Blige)
2. Politics as Usual
3. Brooklyn’s Finest (feat. The Notorious B.I.G.)
4. Dead Presidents II
5. Feelin’ It (feat. Mecca)
6. D’Evils
7. 22 Two’s
8. Can I Live
9. Ain’t No Nigga (feat. Foxy Brown)
10. Friend or Foe
11. Coming of Age (feat. Memphis Bleek)
12. Cashmere Thoughts
13. Bring it On (feat. Big Jaz and Sauce Money)
14. Regrets
15. Can I Live II (feat. Memphis Bleek)
16. Can’t Knock the Hustle (Fool’s Paradise Remix)
Surprise, surprise, I’m reviewing a rap album. This may not come as a surprise to those of you who know my listening habits well, but to others it may. I won’t lie: it isn’t a guilty pleasure, I legitimately enjoy rap music. This is in sharp contrast to my rap-hating self of the past. I was hung up on the fact that it used sampling, the fact that it “all sounds the same” (true fact: everyone says that about any music they aren’t familiar with, and it’s just as hilarious when applied to rap as when it is to, say, rock), and all sorts of things about it that I found talentless.
I could have picked Illmatic by Nas or Enter the 36 Chambers by the Wu-Tang Clan, but those are easy targets. Nas has unusually intelligent lyrics, Wu-Tang is over the top and far too much fun, but Jay-Z doesn’t have any gimmicks going for him. He’s just a good rapper, and probably the best example of East Coast Hip Hop.
I can’t say that I’m too knowledgeable on rap as a whole, especially compared to other areas of music. My grossly over-simplified introduction is that you have East Coast, West Coast, and Southern Hip Hop. Generally speaking, East Coast is more serious and tends to use jazzier samples, while West Coast is more fun and over the top and relies on funkier beats. Southern Hip Hop is like a more crass version of West Coast Hip Hop, both in style and in substance. There are plenty of exceptions to this and, like I said, I’m probably embarrassingly oversimplifying things. I just want to make it clear that rap is not at all lacking in variety.
Also, I’m sure you know that most rock played on the radio is pretty bad. The same goes for rap. You can’t judge it based on what you here changing stations in your car, or at dance parties, than you can judge rock music by the pop-rock that the world is saturated and infatuated with. The good stuff is hardly underground, but it isn’t right at the forefront either. A lot of artists that have gone downhill (Outkast, for example) started out much better. Rap artists are subject to turning pop just as much as rock bands are.
Jay-Z is a strange artist, for me, because a lot of stuff he’s done and produced hasn’t been very good. But going back to this, his debut LP, you get to see him before he became a superstar. I always think early albums are a good place to start because they let you see the artist before they hit it big, and you get to see those elements that made them big. This album is no different. Jay-Z is a talented pop producer, you can’t deny that, but here he shines both in flow and in his choice and arrangement of beats.
Flow. Beats. Those are two words you’ll hear a lot when you’re reading about rap music. Simplified, the flow is the lyrics, the beats are the music. Let me elaborate.
Flow is more than just the lyrics, it’s the way the lyrics…well…flow together. Rap music – and this is, I think, the biggest thing that keeps people who aren’t initiated with it from getting into it – isn’t about the words themselves nearly as much as it is about how the words flow into one another. There’s meaning to the songs, and that’s important, but when it comes to specific phrases in the song, it’s less about getting the most poetically beautiful phrasing and more about getting the most aesthetically pleasing phrasing. This is what I find really fascinating about rap, and where a lot of the talent lies, and where a lot of people don’t bother to look. It isn’t just about stringing together rhyming lyrics, it’s about looking at language almost as if it were devoid of meaning and judging it purely by the shape and the sounds of the words. About selecting them carefully so it comes out fast and smoothly and carries the rhythm and aesthetic feel that you’re trying to go for. I think the main reason that a lot of radio rap is so terrible is because the artists don’t really pay attention to this. When you hear a phrase that really flows well, it almost gives you chills. It’s turning the tuneless sound of speech into something that is, in and of itself, musical. Meaning is a different second.
This also means that the music tends to include a lot of profanity. When you’re trying to construct music that flows well and still carries some meaning, you need as big of a palette as you can get, and given that profanity largely consists of words that are short and snappy and that can fit in almost any circumstances, it gets used a lot. Like filler, or glue, if you will.
Just keep in mind, at all times: the literal meaning of the lyrics is not the most important part. The overall message of the song may be important, but how it’s conveyed, not so much.
Next are the beats, which are basically pieces of music sampled from other songs and reorganized to provide a good backing track to rap over. I can’t really say much about them without sounding woefully uninformed (and the fact that I’m a white 20 year old computer science major living at home pretty much shoots down any credibility I may have to be talking about any of this), except to say that there is talent to it. There are good beats, great beats, and bad beats. You want to music to be constant and rhythmic but not annoying. The best songs (in my opinion) use the backing music to heighten the emotion of the song, with the rap often following it, somewhat, melodically. Just because it isn’t singing in the traditional sense doesn’t mean it has no sense of melody to it.
How this relates to the album I’m reviewing: Jay-Z has phenomenal flow. His lyrics aren’t as complex or impressive as Nas, conceptually, but they more than make up for it in flow. It isn’t the sort of thing I can describe, you just need to listen to it. The craftsmanship is obvious. The beats are expertly chosen and edited, the best tracks (in my opinion) being mostly softer jazzy piano. The tone on the album is fairly dark, full of dead friends and guilt. The songs, like a lot of rap, are about illegal activity. But while it features the standard machismo, there’s a tone of regret. It’s more realism than glorification, which is shown especially in songs like D’Evils. It’s light on excuses and heavy on personal blame. I’ll leave it to the scientists to decide if rap music encourages gang activity, but I’ll note that the majority of the market for rap music is not made up gang members. And, yeah, I think the lyrics are problematic, for the violence and the drugs and the misogyny and the homophobia etc. But despite the fact that rap is almost all spoken word, I find that it’s easier to distance the meaning from the music than it is with rock music.
The production is amazing. If you’ve read any of this blog, you know that I’m a sucker for good texture, and it’s abundant here. It’s clearly inspired by the warm and unpredictable sound of aging vinyl, and the older jazzy samples help improve that mood.
I’m going to upload the track D’Evils, since it’s a good example of both the phenomenal beats and flow on the album. It contains profanity, but not much more than most rock music, probably less than most actual language. Rhyme is a part of it, smooth transitions are another. If it helps, pretend it isn’t in English, just another percussion instrument. That’s all I can really say except that I hope you keep an open mind and manage to enjoy it despite the controversial lyrics themselves.
Next time I plan on writing about a Modest Mouse album that is, unlike their last few releases, actually good.
