“Time waits for no man…” were words once uttered by Jay Z on Reasonable Doubt, his debut album.
That was 1996. By 2003, Jigga had seemingly had his fill with the rap game and was prepared to call it a career. In hindsight, it seems rather silly that after only eight official years in the game Jay would even entertain the idea of hanging up his mic and his writtens. Well, Jay “don’t write,” so I guess he’d be hanging up his thoughts??
This is why I never bought into the whole retirement thing even when The Black Album dropped on November 14, 2003. It seemed far too unnatural for Jay to turn a blind eye (and ear) to the rhymes that would inevitably rattle around in his head. Maybe it was all a marketing ploy. Maybe he was tired of the grind. Or maybe he really wanted to pattern his career after Michael Jordan, and becoming president of Def Jam would be his version of playing outfield for the Birmingham Barons. Whatever the case, it resulted in one of the better albums of Mr. Carter’s illustrious career.
While The Black Album fell short of delivering on the initial promise of having 12 songs, with one each produced by the 12 greatest rap produces in history, Jay was able to enlist a who’s who of hip-hop heavy hitters to score his supposed swansong. Just Blaze, 9th Wonder, Rick Rubin, Timbaland, The Neptunes and Kanye West were among the legends to put in work for Boss Hova. The record also served as the backdrop for the memorable “Fade to Black” concert/tour/documentary.
But most importantly, this was Jay — whether disingenuous or not — attempting to put his very best musical foot forward as he walked away from the game. It resulted in one of the three best rap albums from the man considered by many to be the GOAT.
Jay Z made his case in the opening stanza of “What More Can I Say” by boasting “Never been a nigga this good for this long/This hood/This pop, this hot/Or this strong/With so many different flows, this one’s for this song/The next one I switch up, this one would get bit up.”
Sidebar: He’s right, you know. And those words still hold true to this day.
He grabbed everybody’s attention with the equally clever and controversial rock-infused record “99 Problems”, a phase that has since become a staple in the hip-hop lexicon.
And who could forget the song used to introduce our very own HHSR Podcast? We pay homage to “Public Service Announcement” every single show. Today, we pay homage to The Black Album.