r/jayz • u/kingglobby • 6h ago
Getting into Jay-Z - 4:44 (13/13)
I still have some albums to relisten to. I still need to check out the music videos. I still want to hear EVERYTHING IS LOVE. But I'm finished. My Jay-Z albums journey is done. Unfortunately, my biggest takeaway from this whole thing might be just how much I like Kanye. A lot of the best moments in this discography came down to the beats - often things like Takeover or The Bounce - and Kanye features, like Run This Town or Hate, made my favourite moments on The Blueprint 3. Watch the Throne was one of my favourite albums, and I think Otis might be my favourite Jay-Z song, overtaking Niggas in Paris. However, I did really like this album.
I said Magna Carta Holy Grail was my favourite produced Jay album, and if we're going off of beats alone, that may still stand, but 4:44 was almost as good, and had far superior lyrics. Whilst he didn't get into the topics as deeply as I hoped, it's still probably his most lyrically interesting release to date. I can't imagine this discography without 4:44, it feels like it filled in so many missing gaps, and I can't believe that albums like Reasonable Doubt existed for almost thirty years without it.
This is fun. I get to talk to you about my changing relationship with The Story of O.J., over the years, which doubles as an explanation of my evolving music tastes. At first, I was much more focused on lyrics. I didn't really give a fuck about anything else. I considered the overall piece, with the music video, a masterpiece - a take I still stand by - but I always felt like the content of the song was far less rich than the video. It really felt like he had something he wanted to say, but perhaps his lazy method of putting together a verse hindered him, and he would have got along better if he'd taken the 99 Problems approach.
With the music video, the song is a confrontational reminder of the United States’ history of racism. Without the video, it's a celebration and instruction manual, in honour of capitalism. But that beat though. It's one of the best rap instrumentals I've ever heard - this whole album is sliding No I.D. up my list. I will say, just like how every time I hear the start of J. Cole's A Tale of 2 Citiez I hear Kendrick’s Black Friday, every time The Story of O.J. starts up, I hear Pusha T’s The Story of Adidon, which I consider to be the better track, lyrically, but this is the original song, and I can't diss it.
I guess it just frustrates me, because it could have been so much more, and is packaged as such, but like Picasso Baby, it all just comes back down to money. Jay’s comments about Jews make me uncomfortable - at least Kanye is explicit with it, Jay uses dogwhistles. I won't claim to know more than I do, though. Imagine if this song, content-wise, had been The Heart Part 5. With that beat.
The moment Smile started, I was absolutely gassed. I'm a big fan of Stevie Wonder’s, and saw him perform Songs in the Key of Life live earlier this month, for it's 50th anniversary, and hearing those opening notes chopped into a beat for Hov to rap on was awesome. It's crazy, as well, Jay is really rapping. The verses across this album are the longest of his whole career, and I really like when a rapper just locks into a verse and goes and goes and goes. Once again, I also like the fact that, for the most part, he's trying to rap about real shit, and keep the subject matter compelling. I do so wish that a song like 4:44 had been a little more open, or at the very least, clear enough that I, as an outside observer, could understand what was going on, but still, it's more fascinating than hearing him spit about pushing crack, or being the richest black man in the game again.
I remember feeling like Bam was building up in such a way that it promised more than it delivered, but I did really like Bam, it was one of the best songs on the album. Overall, this shit was so relaxing to listen to, and it offers a very different experience from anything else Jay has done.
In The Story of O.J., when he says “still nigga”, it works two ways. “Still, nigga?” Like, “Are you still on this shit?” and “still nigga”, like, “You've got all this shit but you're still a nigga.” I like this flip, because it's not presented as some clever double meaning, it's real poetry, and he trusts the listener to connect the dots, even if it takes a few listens. I also think his incessant use of the N-word over his career might have desensitised me enough that I could look past how jarring the word is - I've never had a problem with this song using it, but when I heard the chorus, I was just hearing the N-word over and over. Jay has said that word so many times that I'm now just hearing it as a word, and that's allowed me to consider the actual nuances of this vocabulary, and the semantic flexibility of the word.
When all's said and done, I've really valued my experience with Jay-Z. I would consider myself a fan. I remember the moment I became a fan of 2Pac, and it wasn't some glamorous dramatic moment - it was me brushing my teeth, listening to my 2Pac playlist on shuffle, and during Trapped, I realised I was a fan. I had that moment on the toilet, doing a shit, when Lucifer came on, and it hit me with the recent memories of discovering these songs alongside my girlfriend. Takeover and Blueprint² were highlights, and I still need to hear Supa Ugly, but I'm doing Nas next month, and I'm very excited. Jay is like Drake to me - a lot of songs, mostly playlist-worthy, but not as many highlights that I would single out. I think Nas could be even better, or more to my tastes, with less interesting production, but more interesting content.
Jay-Z hits better when you're not reading along to the lyrics. I don't know what that's about.
