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| Classic: Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt |
| Music |
 Within the context of Reasonable Doubt, the tracklist of Jay-Z’s recently released The Hits Collection: Volume One makes for some frustrating reading. ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde, Roc Boys (And the Winner Is…), D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)…it is a collection that is depressingly weighted towards Jigga’s pop-crossover, club-friendly productions, making it easy to see why his career is a story that has never tended to impressive many hip-hop purists. Rewind back to 1996, however, and it is possible to witness Shawn Carter at the peak of his creative powers, with more to say than at any other stage of his illustrious career.
Reasonable Doubt is Jay-Z’s first and finest hip hop record, often considered one of the best of all time for its ruthlessly honest and poetic treatment of life as a drug dealer on the streets of Brooklyn, New York. Punctuated by skits taken from mafia films such as Scarface and recognisable for its cover image of Jigga complete with hat, coat, and Cuban cigar, it is also an album that is one of the finest examples of the Mafioso rap subgenre.
Original and heartfelt, the record is home to some of hip hop’s finest tracks. Opener Can’t Knock The Hustle, for example, is made great by its basic formula of simple rhymes and standard alliteration patterns and features an irresistible vocal from Mary J. Blige. Dead Presidents II, meanwhile, is built around one of hip hop’s finest beats and features a vocal sample from Nas’ The World Is Yours [Remix], and has come to be seen as one of the sparks of the duo’s famous feud of the early-2000s. Elsewhere is the untouchable collaboration with the late Notorious B.I.G. on Brooklyn’s Finest, where Jigga impressively manages to more than hold his own alongside a hip hop great at the peak of his powers.
Reasonable Doubt's reputation as a great album is consolidated by its refusal to let up after such a strong start. Ain’t No Nigga is built around an infectious funk beat and features lyrics from a then 17-year old Foxy Brown, Coming of Age features an exhilerating exchange with an excitable Memphis Bleek, whilst 22 Two’s showcases Carter’s impressive, if uncomfortably misogynistic, freestyling ability that concludes with the articulation of an important Jay-Z moral - that bad behaviour gets in the way of making money.
Reasonable Doubt is a record that tells us more about Shawn Carter than another eight albums featuring the likes of Kanye West and Swizz Beatz will ever manage to reveal. Witness D’Evils, arguably the album’s finest track, which contains a brilliantly dark beat produced by the legendary DJ Premier, and Regrets, both of which provide brutally honest depictions of the dangerously infectious paranoia created by life on the streets. Whilst happy to accept the money and women that his lifestyle brings him, Jay-Z is refreshingly articulate when acknowledging its perilous dangers (‘Time waits for no man/Can’t turn back the hands once it’s too late,/Gotta learn to live with regrets').
The routes of Jay-Z’s imperious personality are easily recognisable throughout – he is cocky verging on arrogant, but also playful and smart, smooth and intelligent. Created by some of mid-90s hip hop’s finest producers and stripped of the club beats which have undermined the authenticity of his later work, this is an album characterised by its minimalist production and lounge jazz vibe which ideally suits Jay-Z’s slick, chilled out delivery. Here it is his polished vocals and narrative power that dominate in place of meaty drum beats and dramatised female vocals.
Comparisons with Nas’ Illmatic are inevitable and numerous – both artists are MCs who, on the back of some substantial underground hype, dropped debut albums that instantly fell into the category of hip hop classic and mark the artistic pinnacles of their careers. Whilst it is foolish to underestimate the importance of his later work in exposing his genre to a wider audience, it is on Reasonable Doubt where we witness Jay-Z at his most untouchable. Coherent and cool, this is as good as hip hop gets. Newer news items:
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