Jay z reasonable doubt review full#

Of course Dame Dash was quick to get his Suge Knight on, appearing on skits and in videos, but this behavior (“too much Sam Rothstein”) would inevitably lead to the death of the dynasty. Internally, the foundation for the Roc-A-Fella Dynasty was also laid on Reasonable Doubt, but many of these partnerships would end in failure as well. Even Irv Gotti (here known as DJ Irv) collaborates here, producing “Can I Live”, with looming plans to team-up Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and DMX as a group called “Murder Inc” – which even spawned a Def Jam white label double 12inch, but nothing more. Even some ten years later, Jay would still be found trying to refashion Foxy as Def Jam’s lead female emcee, but the dream was never realized due to an apparent “deafness” and rumors of her unpredictable behavior. Here again, Foxy was always fashioned to be Jay-Z’s female counterpart (the Lil’ Kim to his Biggie), but she instead chose association with The Firm, eventually leading to the high-profile beef with Nas. Instead, the song that saw greater success was Jay’s teaming with Foxy Brown on “Ain’t No Nigga”, the shameless EPMD jacking that arguably put Jay-Z on the map. Plans to eventually form “The Commission”, along with Charli Baltimore, were obviously thwarted, due to B.I.G.’s unfortunate death, and of course the, um, fallout, with Lance “Un” Rivera. Arguably the album’s most energetic track, the Clark Kent produced song featured the best-friends going line-for-line in a tag team style, complete with 2Pac potshots. And it wasn’t, as Jay suggests at the beginning of “Can I Live”: “we hustle out of a sense of hopelessness, sort of a desperation….”īesides the career of Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt gave birth to several partnerships, each of which would ultimately fade to black, the first being that of “Brooklyn’s Finest”, between Jay and Biggie.

Ironically, here was up-and-coming superstar rhyming about “the good life” on songs like “Politics As Usual”, “Dead Presidents II”, and the aforementioned “Can’t Knock The Hustle”, but each of the beats came with a certain sadness that suggested shit really wasn’t all good. The overall moody feeling found in the production didn’t stop at “D’Evils”, as much of the album carried this sound. Premier checks in again on the incredible “D’Evils”, which finds Jay confessing his sins over Preem’s melancholy pianos.

Jay z reasonable doubt review full#

In moments of fewer technicalities, the full brilliance of his conversational “Friend Or Foe” narrative wouldn’t be realized until two years later, when he and Premier crafted the sequel (“Friend Or Foe ’98″), both of which came to life in the film Streets is Watching. On “22 Twos”, he kicks “that Tribe Called Quest shit” on the hook, following with a verse that literally incorporates twenty-two uses of the word “two/to/too”. Reasonable Doubt finds Jay as not quite the able lyricist he would one day become, but signs of it were still evident. The irony was a true change in lifestyle wouldn’t happen until at least five years later, and at this point Roc-A-Fella was just a imprint distributed by Priority Records, while he and Dame slummed it in the Marcy Housing Projects. But that was the appeal of Jay-Z – even at the birth of his career, he projected success, as if he was already vacationing in Paris and dating Beyonce. Of course the line was meant for those envious of his flossy lifestyle, not Jay himself. Blige on “Can’t Knock The Hustle”, the somber introduction to Jay-Z’s 1996 classic Reasonable Doubt. “Maybe one day you’ll be a star….” sings Mary J.

This weeks classic album review is on Jay-Z – “Reasonable Doubt” and was written by HipHopSite.Com’s DJ Pizzo on December 17th, 2006.

Jay-z reasonable doubt review