Jay-Z wants to relive his past. He's doing the soundtrack to the upcoming Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe movie "American Gangster", and in keeping with the film's gritty nature, Jay has promised to deliver a dark, uncompromising album in the vein of the music he made early in his career. He's said to be looking to his first album, 1996's "Reasonable Doubt", for inspiration and it's not hard to see why. "American Gangster" is the story of an infamous drug dealer's rise to power. "Reasonable Doubt" tells a similar story, reflecting on the days when a young Shawn Carter was was supporting himself through the narcotic trade, before he went on to wealth, fame and Beyonce as Jay-Z. If he has to look to his youth to inspire him for "American Gangster", Jay couldn't ask for a better blueprint than "Reasonable Doubt".
While Jay-Z's later albums reflected the viewpoint of a man on top of the world, "Reasonable Doubt" was a portrait of the artist as a struggling hoodlum, sharing his past with the listener while looking toward the future with guarded optimism. Jay was a nobody searching for a foothold in the overcrowded New York rap scene when the album came out. "Reasonable Doubt" wouldn't match the sales of his later output, but those who heard it were blown away. As the album garnered more attention through word of mouth, Jay-Z was suddenly being mentioned alongside legends like Nas and Biggie Smalls as a future cornerstone of the east coast hip hop movement.
The album’s subject matter isn't exactly groundbreaking. Countless MCs before and since have talked about selling drugs, packing guns and being forced to do anything to survive, usually after they've moved out to the suburbs and left behind the conditions that they rapped about. But it's his style, not his subject matter, that gives Jay's music far more impact than the routine gangsta fare currently being cranked out by record labels. He has an understated brashness about him, not like 2Pac's fiery bravado or T.I.'s leering cockiness. Jay's style is more laid back, but still commandingly confident. He's pure James Bond; he knows he's the coolest one in the room and doesn't need to be loud or flashy to prove it.
The beats on "Reasonable Doubt", done by a slew of talented producers, are soulful and sinister at the same time. "Can I Live" is powered by a sample of Isaac Hayes's epic song "The Look of Love", and the beat is the perfect canvas for Jay to paint his intriguing pictures of the illegal life. "Brooklyn's Finest", his collaboration with Biggie Smalls, the self-proclaimed "King of New York" whose throne Jay would one day inherit, has a beat filled with off-kilter piano keys and harmonious wails taken from an old Ohio Players record. The album's high point, "Can't Knock the Hustle", is built around a sample of Melissa Morgan's lush "Fool's Paradise", deftly borrowing from Morgan's song instead of pillaging it.
Over these beats, on which a less capable MC would be hopelessly overmatched, Jay switches up his style effortlessly to match the emotion of each particular song. He tugs heartstrings on the wistful "Regrets", pumps pure adrenaline on "22 Twos" and releases his inner anguish on "D'Evils", lyrically and musically the bleakest song on an album with plenty of competition. His witty double (occasionally triple) entendres, intricate metaphors and seen-it-all swagger are on full display on "Reasonable Doubt". If Jay wants to give "American Gangster" a similar sound, he'll have his work cut out for him trying to recapture the magic of his debut.
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