Jaÿ-z reasonable doubt
Cameos on hit Jaz songs like “Hawaiian Sophie” and “The Originators” though parlayed into bigger appearances on albums by New York favorites such as Big L and Mic Geronimo. Jigga paid dues for years as the protege of the rapper Jaz, to little acclaim. That’s not to say Jay-Z didn’t pay his dues and earn the right to be recognized, but like champagne good things only bubble up over time. You could actually respond with “Who?” when someone said his name out loud. That most commercially recognizable of all rappers used to have less visibility than a Kia Sportage. Jay Z was one of the first to nail the balance and the genre is better off for it.Hard as it is to believe now, there was a day and time in rap’s history when there was no H to the Izzo, no Jay-Hova, no Jigga Man, and even a time when there was no Jay-Z on radio. It established himself as a man with purpose, with depth, with wicked intelligence, which showed through even when he started making poppier hits like "Hard Knock Life" and later "Big Pimpin.'"Īnd really that's always been the unique strength of all hip-hop - its simultaneous ability to move booties on the dance floor while leaving the listener a mindful to think through later. Today's courtside-seated, yacht-toting Jay himself lists as his best. It now consistently lands on all the major " Greatest Albums of All Time" lists and garners praise from today's influencers, like El-P and Pusha T. It took the Source two years to update their review, pinning it with its coveted 5 mic rating, but at that point Jay Z was already well on his way to remaking the genre. So the album is basically on trial, whether you like it or you don't." "Whether it be through interviews or radio. "Basically we named the album Reasonable Doubt because with anything you do in life, people are going judge you," Jay Z said in a 1997 interview. With Reasonable Doubt, Jay essentially laid every one of his cards out on the table and waited for the world to decide what to make of them. "9 to 5 is how you survive, I ain't trying to survive," he rapped on "D'Evils." "I'm tryna live it to the limit and love it a lot." A more clear summation of the hustler lifestyle is hard to find. Jay Z's biggest talent, which he's relied on throughout his career, his ability to capture life's infinite complexities into the most stark logic possible. Jay Z is hardly glorifying life on the streets when he talks about his "mom's crying because her insides are dying/ Her son trying her patience, keep her heart racing," in an expert internal rhyme on "Regrets." It's reflective, removed, like someone who's thought everything over too many times to the point that it loses emotional consequence.īut what those revelations lose in feeling, they gain in rhetorical power. That feeling comes across on songs like "D'Evils" and "Regrets." "The studio was like a psychiatrists couch for me," Jay Z once told Rolling Stone about the album. What was unique about Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt wasn't what he was spitting, it was how how he was spitting it. And in the summer of '96, which was dominated by landmark releases from established artists like Tupac and A Tribe Called Quest, and genre-defying freshness from up-and-coming acts like Outkast and the Fugees - it was hard for critics to realize the enormity of what they were witnessing: The rise of a man who would soon reshape hip-hop in his own image. Its power wasn't as immediate as Nas' far more urgent Illmatic, or as heart-stopping Notorious B.I.G.'s as Ready to Die. "It's the same 'ol criminal melodrama that you hear on so many rap LPs these days." "Jay Z isn't saying anything new," the Source, hip-hop's most trusted critic at the time, said of the album. No Rihanna, no Kanye West, no "Takeover." No rags to riches story to show how life-changing force hip-hop could be.īut 20 years ago Saturday when Jay Z released his debut album Reasonable Doubt, that reality seemed inevitable. Imagine DJ Clark Kent had never managed to convince a 25-year-old Sean Carter that rap could be more than a hobby. It's almost impossible. Imagine, for a second, a hip-hop without Jay Z. "I gave you prophecy on my first joint, and y'all lamed out