Since the Jiggaman made an impromptu announcement that he would be releasing an album this November titled “American Gangster” that is inspired by the Denzel Washington film with the same name, peeps all over the world have been waiting anxiously for songs to leak on the net so that they could determine as to whether the material is as hot as has been promised.
I have two tracks so far, the fun Neptunes-produced “Blue Magic” and the hustlers’ celebratory anthem “Roc Boys”, and I must say I am going apeshit with excitement. Those two joints are really setting a good tone for the conceptual album that will see Jay-Z going back in memory to his dope-dealing days and weaving lyrical imagery that is guaranteed to raise that hair at the back of your neck. Commentators and critics are already putting the upcoming album in the league of “Reasonable Doubt” and “Blueprint”, so it will be interesting to see how hip hop heads eventually react to it.
Below is an excerpted article that recently appeared in Entertainment Weekly magazine. It reveals details about Jigga’s recording process with this album; it also previews some of the tracks that will make the final cut on “American Gangster”.
Hovie’s home.
“L'chaim," Jay-Z pronounced, holding up a shot of Patron rum, joined by the dozen or so journalists he'd invited to his Roc the Mic Studios in NYC on Friday evening. The Hebrew toast struck me as oddly apt: Simchas Torah, the Jewish holiday celebrating the first day of reading the holy scriptures, had ended just hours earlier, and here I was sitting with Jay-Hova, the self-proclaimed God Emcee, moments after he'd blessed us with his latest divine words.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The sacred writ he shared with us before those Patron shots was American Gangster, the concept album he's planning to release Nov. 6. The unmastered tracks he played for us were missing verses here and there, and he's still mulling over the album's exact sequencing. Even in that incomplete state, though, American Gangster already sounded like a Jay-Z fan's dream come true. Make no mistake — despite the emotional reference points provided by the album's namesake film, which played overhead on a flat-screen TV throughout the listening session, this music is all about Jay and the things that make him a great artist.
The beats are dominated by warm, powerful soul samples, even more so than on Jay's 2001 classic The Blueprint; the lyrics outlining a street hustler's mentality are by turns as clever, as incisive, as gritty, as moving as any in his catalogue. (The album is in part a reaction to the lyrical vapidity of hits like Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot," he said: "When the guy says 'I could make a mil' saying nothing on the track,' you know you've reached a bad place.") After the jump, check out a track-by-track preview of the highlights so far.
• "Pray": American Gangster's first cut, one of several produced by none other than Sean "Diddy" Combs — whom Jay still calls "Puffy," harkening back to days long past when both were members of the late Notorious B.I.G.'s circle. "[The album] starts with a kid looking into the game," Jay explained. The beat slams ominously behind his scene-setting rhymes: "Mindstate of a gangster from the '40s/Meets the business mind of Motown's Berry Gordy."
• "No Hook": Another wide-screen Puff production, full of dark organ vibes, and more rhymes from an aspiring kingpin's perspective: "F---rich, let's get wealthy/Who else gon' feed we?" The mood is sneering, hungry, with Jay almost seeming to slip into his long-abandoned double-time flow at times.
• "Roc Boys": "That's him at his height," Jay said of his persona in this song. "It's a celebration of the whole s---." Exultant horns burst out on the beat (Puffy again) as the rapper revels in a lifestyle funded by ill-gotten riches: "First of all, I wanna thank my connect/The most important person, with all due respect/...Think rosé/Think O.J./I get away with murder when I sling yey'." (The song also includes a reference to "black bar mitzvahs." Maybe that "L'chaim" was even more significant than I realized.)
• "I Know": Hard-hitting percussion and sparkling synths underly this conceptual track about desire's many faces: "I know what you like/I'm your prescription/I'm your physician/I'm your addiction." "I'm using a lot of heroin references," Jay noted as he tried to unpack the song's multi-layered metaphors. "[But] on another level, it plays as a song about relationships. And on a drunk-too-much-wine-one-night level, it plays as the game talking to me. It's f---ing weird — but the music is great." He's not lying.
• "Ignorant S---": Web-savvy fans may recall a purposefully outrageous outtake from 2003's The Black Album bearing this name. "It's one of those gems you can't let go," Jay said now. So he dusted it off for Gangster, complete with the unforgettably explicit hook in which he boasts, "I got that ignorant s--- you like/N----, f---, s----, a--, b----, trick, plus ice!" Just call him rap's George Carlin. The song now also features a decidedly non-ignorant new verse in which Jay thoughtfully eviscerates Don Imus and all those who've equated the disgraced shock jock with foul-mouthed rappers — plus some tight guest bars from Jay's longtime protege Beanie Sigel.
• "Success": The endorphin rush provided by new money starts to wear off on this cut, produced by Chicago veteran (and Kanye West mentor) No I.D. "I used to give a f---, now I give a f--- less," Jay reflects over a rapidly descending organ riff. "Truth be told, I had more fun when I was piss-poor." Jay's former rival Nas talked him into letting him spit on this track; Nas' verse hasn't been mixed in yet, but Jay promises that "It's hot. He killed it."
• "Say Hello to the Bad Guy": Atlanta's DJ Toomp (T.I.'s "What You Know," Kanye West's "Big Brother") contributed this beat, which keeps that darkening mood going with church-like organs.
• "When the Money's Gone": The title says it all about this one. Jay raps about the inevitable downfall which befalls even the most successful hustlers; Jermaine Dupri produced the backdrop of shuffling drums and cascading synths.
• "Fallen": Another J.D. production, and likely the album's final track. Jay reflects on the perverse pleasure the public takes in seeing a star destroyed: "Fallen/They applaudin'." Neo-soul crooner Bilal sings the elegiac hook. It's a cathartic ending to an emotionally gripping album.
Conspicuously missing from the evening's playlist was "Blue Magic," the album's fantastic teaser single; Jay still isn't sure yet where it would fit in, and he's even considering making it an unlisted bonus track.
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