Track 11 on jay-z reasonable doubt album

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вЂњLetвЂ™s get together and make this whole world believe us,вЂќ he raps toward the end, ever-so-briefly accelerating his flow as producer KnobodyвЂ™s lax beat thuds behind him. Blige - part lover, part mother, pure inspiration - Jay jokes, boasts and sneaks in Pete Sampras references like only he can. HeвЂ™s got вЂњshort-term goals,вЂќ as he says in the opening line, but heвЂ™s clearly packing long-game skills. Blige: After some interpolated Scarface dialogue about getting deeper into the drug game, Jay gets on the mic to justify his exit.

I wanted to perform and I didn't know where performing would take me exactly, but I knew it would take me far away from where I'd come from.' 'I didn't want to sell drugs,' he told Yahoo! вЂњI wanted a better life. He also catalogs the spoils and thrills like someone whoвЂ™s maybe not ready to give it up, though by his own admission, he was. In hustling, heвЂ™d found a way out of poverty, but throughout Reasonable Doubt, he hints at the remorse he feels flooding his community with crack. If there's one thing Jay knew about, it was supplying product. They had me traveling places to do in-stores, and my product wasnвЂ™t even available in the store.'

Track 11 on jay z reasonable doubt album how to#

As he told Yahoo! Music in 1999, Payday 'didnвЂ™t know how to work a record.' He added: вЂњThe things that they were setting up for me I could have done myself.

Track 11 on jay z reasonable doubt album full#

Blige and other contributors were reportedly paid with bags full of cash - but it suited JayвЂ™s purposes. This wasnвЂ™t your typical music-biz operation - Mary J. Jay was originally signed to Payday Records, but when the label didn't support him like he wanted, he teamed with friends Dame Dash and Kareem 'Biggs' Burke to form his own company, Roc-a-Fella Records. Which isn't to say he wasn't cutthroat about certain things. Even when he's rapping about moving product and really playing up the mafioso character he portrays on the LP's cover, Jay sounds like the world's most approachable godfather. On Reasonable Doubt, he slings denser, wordier rhymes than he would on subsequent albums, and yet his flow is remarkably casual - confident with the faintest hints of sadness and stress. Jay was able to do so largely because of his delivery. He was telling a harrowing coming-of-age story in a way people whoвЂ™d never heard of the Marcy Projects could understand.

On the 13 songs that follow, Jay silences doubters with songs that walk the line between bruising East Coast street rap and soulful radio-ready crossover fare. The leadoff track, 'Can't Knock the Hustle,' isn't about justifying his illicit activities to millions of mainstream listeners it's about him telling his fellow dealers to respect his sideline in music.

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When Jay made the record, he was a regional NYC phenom with one foot still planted in the crack game. Released 20 years ago today (June 25, 1996), the debut effort from the industrious Brooklyn rapper born Shawn Carter is not the sound of an overnight success taking a victory lap. But there's a gap between those gigs, and it's best explained by Reasonable Doubt. By now, everyone knows the two main bullet points on Jay Z's resume: drug dealer and king of the world.

Track 11 on jay-z reasonable doubt album