Nas - The Lost Tapes - 2002 - Columbia
You know how it goes with outtakes collections. Considering the amount of leaked recordings that Nas had built up in the archive, this could have been monumental. Unfortunately it comes off as sounding like the mish-mash that it is. According to the liner notes, the tracks are culled from sessions for I Am and Stillmatic. Considering how different those two records were thematically, it serves to reason that this collection will lack balance. And it does. The opener, "Doo Rags" is gorgeous. It features a wistful piano part that brings up feelings of nostalgia and loss. "No Ideas Original" has a great Barry White sample and classic breakbeat. Meanwhile "Purple" has a really smooth production that seems out of place, along with "My Way" considering how mediocre most of the other beats are here. Having said that, if you can put up with the inconsistent production, there's some interesting and solid rapping by Nas here, and with its lack of skits the dozen songs hold together pretty well without wearing on your patience. It's certainly not a terrible record, but you can't really shake the feeling that it could have been much better.
Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt - 1996 - Roc-A-Fella
Jay-Z's debut is ambitious as fuck. I mean, where did he come from? Virtually nowhere. Though in reality he came from a tiny one room office that he was renting with friends as they formed The Roc. He was selling his only single out of the trunk of his car. And then this. It is a defining record in the so-called mid-90's "mafioso rap" movement. Yet what's really interesting is all the nods to his predecessors and peers. For instance he jacks the same beat used on Tha Alkaholics' "Only When I'm Drunk." A West Coast group! He samples the same bassline as Artifcacts' "Wrong Side Of The Tracks." He samples Nas, Mobb Deep and Snoop Dogg. He invites Foxy Brown from Nas' The Firm crew for a guest shot. He name checks A Tribe Called Quest. In a sense, he's taking all of his influences, blending them up and attempting to create something completely new from it all. Creation via destruction. It's also interesting just how into language Jay-Z was out the gate. He approaches a lot of these cuts with the eye of a poet. And I don't necessarily mean a poet in the words he uses, but rather in how he chooses to use them. Such as the abundance of "to/too/two" on "22 Two's." But perhaps the greatest thing about this record is how he invents himself. Again, he was trying to upstart an indie label, yet creates this persona of a man larger than life. In a sense, this a study on the American Dream from a man who had yet to receive that big paycheck. But look at the early tracks: "Can't Knock The Hustle," "Politics As Usual," "Brooklyn's Finest," and "Dead Presidents II." He was creating the myth that he was already huge. And then we get to "D'Evils," an astonishingly brilliant track about money and greed and excess eating us from the inside out. "We used to fight for building blocks, now we fight for blocks with buildings that make a killing." These observations levied by the Snoop sample in the hook - "dear God, I wonder can you save me." It's heavy stuff. And that's only the first half. This is an honest to goodness classic that has a sort of ambitious lo-fi charm to it. It's somehow humble and grandiose at the same time.
Jay-Z - Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life - 1998 - Roc-A-Fella
Hard Knock Life is such a record of its time. Sadly, its time was a confused era of hip hop. The end of the millennium. Much of mainstream hip hop seemed obsessed with materialism (see: the car on the cover) and felt a bit like a disposable art form. In many ways this record is fast food. It's got some awesome flavor, but it's also cheap and doesn't keep you filled for long. But let's focus on the good for a minute. The title track is a straight classic. Subtitled "Ghetto Anthem," it is indeed an anthem. It's a fight song. It's motivation. You hear those piano plinks and you feel good. That alone makes this record hard to hate on. The proper closer "It's Like That" is excellent as well, and feels like it could have felt at home on Reasonable Doubt perhaps. But everything in between is a mixed bag that feels mostly mediocre. "Money, Cash, Hoes" is horrible. The beat alone is tough to listen to. The sequel to "Comin' Of Age" just doesn't have the intensity of the original. "Paper Chase" is another low point - again pointing out the so-called "Big Willie Era." While production from Timbaland and Erik Sermon helps this album rise out of its blandness, pretty much all of Swizz Beats' tracks works against it. The bonus tracks - "It's Alright" (recycled from Streets Is Watching) and "Money Ain't A Thing" from Jermaine Dupres' project close things out pretty good. But it's just ultimately not the strong album that Jay-Z had already proven he could pull off.
Jay-Z - The Dynasty: Rock La Familia - 2000 - Roc-A-Fella
So this was intended to be a Roc-A-Fella compilation album, showcasing the various signees - Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, Freeway - but along the way it turned into a Jay-Z album, likely because of the fact that "Jay-Z" on the cover would sell more copies. With that in mind, it sounds like a compilation. Jay-Z is featured heavily, but he's not really the star. It's not his show. But the supporting cast holds their own very well, and that includes guest shots from Scarface and Snoop Dogg as well. The big single here is the Neptunes-driven "I Just Wanna Love You." And while not the most interesting song in Jay's career, it's certainly fun as hell. "This Can't Be Life" featuring Scarface sounds like a precursor to his own "Guess Who's Back" with Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel from two years later. The problem with this record is flow. It starts off strong - from the intro through "Get Your Mind Right," it's a pretty strong opening third. But the middle section is boring and weak. Luckily, the last third pulls the album out of its own funk. Much of the best production here comes from Just Blaze - not surprisingly. And the single Kanye West track, the aforementioned "This Can't Be Life." It's not a great album, but it's a good one with enough keepers to justify mining for your own personal Best Of Hova mixtape.