CD of the week:
Jay-Z: The Black Album
It’s hard to believe that one of the best rappers ever to walk the face of the earth, Jay-Z, is leaving the rap game. This is the same game that took him from a street hustler to a rap superstar. With The Black Album (Universal), his ninth and last album, Jigga takes it up where The Blueprint left it off with witty, narrative rhymes over classic, bumpy hip-hop street-corner beats. The album is a reminder of why hip-hop has grown to be such an influential music genre, why it feels right to walk around in doo-rags, Timberlands and Fubu pants, screaming: “For sheezy my neezy!”
Jay-Z celebrates his rags-to-riches success, how he disappointed his enemies with the emergence of his million-dollar Roc-a-Fella empire.
Listening to the album, it is clear that Jigga is still in his prime. His rhymes are real and emotional, reminiscent of those the late Notorious BIG used to spit. Here Jay-Z challenges himself over beats by some of the best hip-hop producers to date — Timbaland, Just Blaze, Kanye West, Eminem and The Neptunes, proving for the last time why he is still the best rapper Marcy has ever produced.
On Threat, produced by 9th Wonder and featuring Cedric the Entertainer, Jigga threatens all opposition with hard lyrics: “I’ll chop you; I’ll put you inside a mattress like drug money.”
On Lucifer he explains the battle inside him, between good and evil: “Man I gotta get my soul right/I gotta get these devils out my life.”
On My 1st Song, he looks back at the days when no one believed in him, before the millions, the women and the bling bling: “I might have me some cappuccino, I’m going some place nice where there’s no mosquitoes at.” The song begins with a few words of wisdom by the Notorious BIG, then a bluesy beat starts blazing with both a jazzy and tropical sound. It is the best song in the whole album. It’s full of resonance and emphasises that Jigga will vividly remain in hip-hop’s psyche as another renegade from the ghetto who made it against all odds. “I came, I saw, I conquered, from record sales to sold-out concerts,” Jigga raps on Encore.
Gloria Estefan: Unwrapped (Epic)
In an apparent about-turn from the days with the Miami Sound Machine, Estefan appears to have joined the current move to commercialised Latin music. Sadly, it doesn’t work as she loses some originality. Her latest offering is nondescript and leaves one with no distinct impressions, not even whether to like the tracks or not. Her vocals don’t lift above the music, which is of the cookie-cutter variety. Disappointing. — Nicola Mawson
Pet Shop Boys: The Hits (EMI)
If, like me, you’re not a full-on Pet Shop Boys fan, a greatest-hits collection is as much as you’ll need. This one certainly renders their 1991 hits compilation, Discography, entirely redundant (and it didn’t want to play in my CD player anyway, like so many EMI local pressings). This new double-CD set divides itself into “Pop” and “Art”, which is surely an arch-joke — the Pets have always been good at combining the two and making pop art or art pop of their own special sort. Tracks such as Paninaro and Domino Dancing I could live without, but a world without such classics as the exhilarating It’s a Sin or the gorgeously maudlin What Have I Done to Deserve This? would be a much poorer place. — Shaun de Waal
Bruce Springsteen: The Essential Bruce Springsteen (Columbia/Risa)
This three-CD set provides a comprehensive overview of Springsteen’s career, from his earliest frenetic Bob Dylan pastiches to his later, somewhat over-produced and self-consciously meaningful efforts. The third CD contains rarities such as previously unreleased tracks and live renditions. Certainly a treasure trove for the Spruce addict, but for my money the truly essential Springsteen is all on his double album The River (1980) and its stripped-down successor, Nebraska. — SdW