Mr. Carter You Done Did It Again

This is not an album review. 

JUNE 30th was a big day for hip hop. After four years of absence, Jay Z was set to release his 13th studio album. In those four years he had popped up on songs and features here and there, but he didn’t release a full body of work for his rabid fans.

At midnight (eastern time, 9PM my time on the pacific) on June 30th the album, called 4:44 dropped and everybody was ready for it, me included. There was only a slight problem: the album would only be available on his music streaming service TIDAL.

This is when I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t signed up for TIDAL yet, because I could now get the one month free trial and indulge in the album as much as I wanted to. I know Jay Z is serious about his streaming service, because he wants artists to have full control of their music. I also know that I will be criticized for being a cheapskate, by not supporting black owned businesses, but I don’t really have money out here like that to be subscribing to all these services. In due time.

Now back to the music. It only took the first 1:20 seconds of the first song, “Kill Jay Z,” for me to know that this album would be special: “You stabbed ‘Un’ over some records, your excuse was he was talking too reckless. Let go your ego over your right shoulder…” is what he raps around that mark. You should have seen my reaction when I heard him say that.

As far as I know, Jay Z has never outright said that he did it. Yes, he pleaded guilty to the assault and served three years of probation. So we knew he did stabbed him, but until now he had never pronounced the words: “I stabbed him.” Even in his book Decoded, when he talks about the incident, he doesn’t admit to the stabbing, he uses subtle, evasive language to make the reader understand that he was in fact responsible. You get what I’m saying?

For those who don’t know: in December 1999, Jay Z stabbed music executive Lance ‘Un’ Rivera at a nightclub in New York City. The reason was that Jay Z had reason to believe ‘Un’ was bootlegging his most recent album at that time Vol 3…Life and Times of S. Carter. 

Jay reveals quite a few things on this album, he allows himself to be vulnerable. This is uncharted waters for him, as he’s notoriously guarded and private about everything. We learn that his mother’s a lesbian, that he may or may not have cheated on his wife by having a threesome, that he thinks he “sucks at love” and needs a “do-over,” it was quite eye-opening to hear all this.

It’s also uncharted waters for Jay Z because he’s the only rapper at almost 48 years old who is still relevant enough that we listen to what he has to say. That’s a rare feat in hip hop, a culture that will forever be a young man’s / woman’s game. He can’t really talk about the same things he talked about in 2001 or even 2007. So it’s interesting to see him evolve and talk about marriage, family, legacy and things that aren’t really hip hop subject matter. He’s creating the blueprint (get it?) for everybody else.

Mr. Carter has always been a special artist, a guy that could regularly churn out high quality music, that was commercially AND critically successful. On this album he took it back to a sample heavy sound that’s absent from today’s rap landscape, as most of hip hop is in the trap era. It’s a very lean album, clocking in at just over 36 minutes with 10 songs. It’s not feature heavy, but the best albums, especially Jay Z’s, were always no more than 15 songs with one no feature at all (refer to The Blueprint or The Black Album.)

I want to thank two people for this album: Ernest Dion “No I.D.” Wilson, the godfather of Chicago hip hop and the sole producer of this album. You were already a walking legend before this LP, but listening to how inspired your production was on this album, including everything else that you did…chapeau.

Last but not least, thank you Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles Carter. Only an artist of your level could inspire the superhuman Jay to share so much vulnerability and knowledge with his audience. Married life and love has clearly affected him in a good way. It’s been interesting to see your fans’ reaction to your husband admitting the things he did.

4:44 is going to take multiple listens (as per usual with Jay Z material) to fully unpack, but we are nothing more than ecstatic at the thought of doing so. Here’s his complete break down of the album, including why it’s called 4:44.