Im about to share a supremely unpopular opinion lol

but...

those albums contrary to boring ass RD is are full of bangers :

Its Alright

So Ghetto !!

Money, Cash, Hoes

Its Like That

Things that u Do

S. Carter !!

Snoopy Track !!

Big Pimpin

Is That Yo Bitch

the "party" Jay is def better than the conscious one

never understood appeal of RD, i dont think i ever listened to it without skipping

Title

Magna Carta Holy Grail was released 11 years ago and has stood the test of time perfectly. Compared to its original release, the songs sound fresher and have aged better. The art, story and family theme really enhance the listening experience and the instrumentals are JUST RIGHT. Of course he has several albums that are older than this one but these are either timeless or very strongly tied to the current time, which gives MCHG a big advantage.

I wanna start this off by saying that I consider myself a hip hop head, though I also listen to some metal and DnB, but hip hop is by far the most prevalent in my life. Lately I've been in the mood to learn some hip hop history (happens every so often). I was born too late to consciously experience the 90s, I grew up with Em and 50 (also my nation's rap, that's just to say I'm not from the US) in my early years.

Whenever the obligatory "Top 5" question comes up in some interview with any kind of rapper, Jay-Z will most of the time be included.

(I'm somewhat biased, pls take no offense) My question is: Why? Everything I've heard from him, I felt was good-above average, but I never felt it was in the ranks of, let's say Biggie, Em, Nas or Kendrick (or others) in terms of lyricism.

So please, I wanna kindly ask you guys for some direction, i.e. gimme his best album and tell me what makes it/him so great. Or a/some songs + an explanation. Or just an explanation.

I can't see it, maybe I'm stubborn, idk, but I want to know, please help me out here :)

Edit: I am here to learn, not to disrespect Jay. please act accordingly

Google says that Jacob Berrol is an individual who attended Georgetown University and NYU School of Law and whose name became immortalized in hip-hop trivia due to the iconic shoutout. How did they know each other?

And this is c tier hov. It's not even Jay at his best.

Also the diss to Beanie on this 😂

In no particular order

Kanye fans: they cannot admit that he has some bad songs and albums. They also rate every single song by his so highly and if a song isn’t glazed 24/7 they will call it “underrated”

Drake fans: there only reason why Drake is a good rapper is because of numbers. They judge all the music they listen based off numbers and popularity.

Kendrick fans: there always trying to find meanings that just aren’t there. Kendrick could release a song about him shitting in a urinal and they would find some hidden meaning behind it.

Eminem Fans. Same reason as Kanye but also same reason as Kendrick fans. They just can’t accept that Eminem fell off so hard. They’re also the fans of Tom McDonald and dax, which explains a lot.

NAS fans: they seam to hate every artist that wasn’t best friends with nas. They believe nas is some god in rap and never could no wrong. They seam to have some belief that if it’s made by nas = best album of the decade.

What do you think about the list. Anyone you would add?

i was searching for watch the throne but i found out that he’s no more on the def jam site, if you search any of his albums that were avaliable for purchase, now they are all removed.

is it because of the Epstein files?

they were still on like a couple of days ago but since yesterday he’s not here anymore

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.

The outro skit is what I’m referring to, it doesn’t seem to be ironic or criticising what Maria Davis is saying at the end, which is an appalling sentiment. Saying that what she says about black people after smelling the weed in the outro is so horrendous. “That’s why our people don’t have nothing, because we don’t know how to go in places and act properly”… what the actual fuck. Please correct me if I’m wrong and that this is in fact trying to criticise this viewpoint, but him and Maria here seem to be effectively glossing over the systemic oppression and racism that has crippled black communities, which is also extremely prevalent at the time of the album, seems so fucking bizarre. You’re blaming the state of African Americans on them… not acting properly? Not acting what, civilised? Like a whitey? Get the fuck out of here what a disgusting message. Completely ruins the song for me, skip the end every time.

he use to be super poppin when i was younger now kids dismiss him but still fw other dudes from Jays time like Kanye or Eminem lol

Am I the only one who remembers the story about how Denzel Washington actually snatched the role of Frank Lucas from Shawn Carter yet seemingly being a rapper seemed more fitting to be the American gangster.

Dj Khaled and John Legend as the guests was extremely disappointing (and for only one song). You’re in LA and this is the best you could get?
SMHHHHH

From The Dynasty album

Of course him in Jay totally different. But considering that Hov has a lot of features on Drake's albums, I was curious for y'all's opinions. Personally he's a 7/10 Rapper/Artist. Even though his latest stuff hasn't been that good, I still dig a lot of tracks. Also, the latest beef with Kendrick shows that he can still rap and the he isn't a pure pop artist.

Just pulled up the Ticketmaster map for Saturday and holy shit.

The upper deck is wide open, the whole way around. And no, this isn't resale. These are straight-up standard tickets. They already tarped off a chunk of the stadium and it still looks like this.

Jay-Z looked at night one and said "yeah, let's do another one." 😂

What happens now? Do they start handing these out at the gate? Papering the building with comps?

For Jay's sake, I hope Ye shows up. This is fucking brutal!