Worst To Best: Jay-Z (List)
Hello world. Sky Bento here back again for the very last time until next time. Hope you been loving yourself in all the right ways because it’s LEO SEASON BABY! If for whatever reason you couldn’t yourself tell, I’m a proud Leo by the book. In fact, my birthday is tomorrow. So as I reflect on life up until this point, I think of all the advice I’ve received, overheard, and listened to throughout my lifetime. This lead me to none other than the man many consider to be the greatest to ever do it - HOV. Now I may have my reservations about the man’s art, his technical ability, his place in history and more but there is one thing I will never deny: his ability as a life coach. Jay-Z is undoubtedly an amazing songwriter and lyricist when he puts his mind to it and even when he’s not there’s still some gems to be found. He naturally has an eye for how the intricate details weave together our very existence… it’s kinda f****** profound. So here we are, ranking his albums from worst to best like we always do at this time. Disclaimer, his collaborative albums are not being counted. As much as I wanna gush about Watch The Throne (it would be #2, #3 or #4 depending on when you ask me), Jay’s storied history already contains thirteen studio albums. Besides that, I’d rather not talk about [redacted] and you can put me on record as saying he and his wife don’t have the best musical chemistry. So there’s the parameters. If you’re looking for how I judge rap albums, check out this other article I did here.
As always this is my list and does not reflect the opinions of TDN as a staff, label, or as a m************ crew. Feel free to crucify me on Twitter @plzsaythebento after you’ve read. Just don’t forget to wish me a happy birthday too dammit.
13. Kingdom Come
I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times. Kingdom Come is absolutely Jay-Z’s worst album. Reception has gotten better in recent years now that we see the full arc of his career… but that just has more to do with Jay just being that good of a rapper. “Show Me What You Got” is dope, but that’s a remix of a Lil Wayne song. “Lost One” has that trademark Hov introspection but in the long run hasn’t held up as the wow moment it was to hear him talk about Beyonce & Dame so openly on record. He still had room to grow in that aspect. This album really is the rebirth of Jay and ultimately led him to transition into the position he’s in now. This is a retirement come back record, an acknowledgment that he’s still making music. He just had yet to fully figure out his new place in the new era of the game.
12. Magna Carta… Holy Grail
Again, we find Hov finding his new place in rap… this one leans a little bit too hard toward self-mythologizing though. This is Jay-Z we’re talking about. He had already become the myth. His personal legend is well known. He changed his aesthetic up majorly on this record and got more into the game of high art. That’s where this album falls apart for me because the actual music just doesn’t match. Or rather, it’s attempt to match falls flatter than it should. The album starts off pretty strong with joints like “Picasso Baby”, “Tom Ford” & “F***withmeyouknowigotit”. A personal favorite of mine is “Somewhereinamerica”, still one of the hardest beats Hov has gotten on since he came back from retirement in ‘06. But the album loses its punch about halfway through, and overall the music juxtaposed with the aesthetic just doesn’t fit the way it did with Watch The Throne. The flows are more dumbed down than usual. Hov always seemed larger than life, but he’d acknowledged it best upon retirement. At this point, it’d feel more believable if it wasn’t acknowledged so much.
11. The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
Another Hov album people always say is bad. But people forget this is right between The Blueprint & The Black Album. Hov is very much still Hov on here. It’s just held back by the double album format. Double albums are just cursed I guess. “A Dream” is a dope ass intro. “The Watcher 2” is a cold East meets West moment with THE ORIGINAL GOD MC and Dr. Dre production. “03 Bonnie & Clyde” probably the best song Jay & Beyonce ever did together. “Excuse Me Miss” is legendary. I even like “What They Gonna Do” with Sean Paul. But that’s all on disc one, as well as more forgettable tracks like “Fuck All Nite”. Even Kanye West’s rapping debut on Jay’s “The Bounce” has mostly been lost to time. When revisiting Jay’s storied history, this one is pretty insignificant, especially considering the namesake.
10. In My Lifetime, Vol. 1
Jay’s second album brought him into the shiny suit era and with that came quite some criticism. But outside of the obvious decision to focus on pop appeal, this is still classic Jay-Z. Hov’s first album after the untimely demise of The Notorious B.I.G. finds him trying to fill that void in some ways. Biggie might’ve really been able to make “Sunshine” work, but Hov’s verses over it just feel forced. But “City Is Mine” is where the worlds of Biggie & Hov perfectly intersect and he’s able to give us what we want because of it. This album saw Jay grow beyond the mafioso manifesto of his debut and learn how to better balance mainstream appeal with his stone cold hustler demeanor. “Lucky Me” and “Where I’m From” still ring out as some of Jay-Z’s best work. His rapping might not have replaced Pac & Biggie, but in their absence Jay Z began to make his claim as king with this album.
9. The Blueprint 3
This placement might be somewhat controversial, but time has been pretty kind to this album. It’s a very middle of the road Jay-Z album. He was fully out of retirement and fresh off the creative high of American Gangster. This album was Jay’s attempt at being forward thinking and shifting the culture again just as he’d done on the original Blueprint at the top of the decade. Fortunately this fares much better than its sequel and part of that comes from Jay relying on more A-List collaborators. This album marks the only time Drake has featured on a Jay-Z song. This album also marks the only time his own artist J. Cole has featured on a Jay-Z song. That’s a statement right there. Beyond that, this album has grand moments that helped fully re-establish Jay-Z for a new audience. Who can forget Kanye’s scene-stealing “Run This Town” verse? “On To The Next One” might not hit the same now at all but it was so ubiquitous it filled many conspiracy theory videos. And of course “Empire State Of Mind” with Alicia Keys could be argued as the biggest hit Jay-Z has ever delivered. “DOA” might not have killed auto-tune (at all) but Jay didn’t look any more out of touch with this album, and it successfully ushered in a new era of Jay-Z fans.
8. The Dynasty: Roc La Familia
I know I said no collaboration albums and I meant that. So I’d like to thank Jay-Z for doing the right thing and making this technically a solo album. It just feels better listening to it that way. As a compilation, it’s good, great even. But as a flex of just how far Jay-Z has come and who he is in the game at the turn of the century? It just makes his star burn that much brighter. This feels like a man on top of his game letting his team eat with him. That Intro might’ve been the greatest of all time if weren’t for DMX & Meek Mill. Then you’ve got “I Just Wanna Love U”, another record nobody can see in a Verzuz. “This Can’t Be Life” with it’s legendary Scarface verse. “Get Your Mind Right Mami” is one of Hov’s smoother tracks. But all in all, it was still intended as a collaboration album and it shows. While Roc heavyweight Beanie Sigel comes through and shines on a few tracks, the other members of Roc-A-Fella records on here are Memphis Bleek & Freeway. I like Freeway personally, and Memphis Bleek has to be here, but there’s definitely a lack of focus and quality control throughout the album. The features make like Snoop, Pharrell & [redacted] are what make the album feel as robust as a label album as it does. Again, let’s be glad Jay-Z made this a solo record.
7. Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter
I’ve gone back and forth and back and forth about Vol. 2 & Vol. 3 because it’s really a matter of taste. Vol. 2 has the hits, Vol. 3 has some of Jay’s best rapping ever. Vol. 3 also has “Big Pimpin’” with the legendary UGK. That automatically makes it amazing. Might even be the best beat Timbo has ever given Hov. Even “Snoopy Track” is even better than most of their collaborations. “Do It Again” has one of the best intro-drops of Jay’s career. “So Ghetto” is classic Doubt-era Jay, literally he’s back looking like him. “Come And Get Me” goes crazy with it’s beat switches and all. But then there’s “Things That U Do” with Mariah Carey that just isn’t the hit it should be. Overall, a far cry from the first Volume but there was more to come with Jay-Z.
6. Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life
While Vol. 1 was intended to give Jay the big hits and cross him over into mainstream success, it was Vol. 2 with it’s Annie-sampling title track that would make Jay Z a household name. I think it was actually the first Jay Z song I’d ever heard, certainly the first I remember. “Ride Or Die” continues the jiggy bounce of Vol. 1 but otherwise this feels like a wildly different album. “Money Cash Hoes” featuring the late great DMX is a standout of course, with it’s Golden Axe sampling Swizz beat. “Can I Get A…” with Ja Rule & Amil is still one of Hov’s most enduring hit records. After all, “gangstas don’t die they get chubby, and move to Miami”. “A Week Ago” with Too $hort & “N**** What N**** Who” with Jaz-O also still feel great to listen to despite showing obvious age. Then the album closes with Jermaine Dupri’s take on New York’s jiggy ass grooves, “Money Ain’t A Thang”. Jigga wanted an album full of hits, and he delivered with Vol. 2.
5. American Gangster
As Hov’s lone “concept album” this record had big shoes to fill. Legend has it, Jay watched the Denzel flick and was so moved by the movie he made this album as a sort of companion piece. But man, this is one is concise and robust at the same time. The fat is definitely trimmed here, as Jay focuses on the American dream through the eyes of a hustler. Fellow American Gangster Diddy oversaw the production of the album which actually makes it turn out better than their previous work together. From front to back, this album is an experience worthy of the namesake and potentially an even more potent piece of art than it. Listing songs would do it a disservice, it’s skipless. And yet it’s still not Hov’s best album. But listen to it front to back and remember, this is his second album post retirement. This is the album that REALLY inspired Hov to keep making albums. This is the album that started to give us the Hov we have today.
4. Reasonable Doubt
Spare me about how it’s blasphemy to have it this low and let’s relish in the fact that his debut even ranks this high to begin with. Originally slept on, history has revised its own opinion of this album. It’s another front-to-back classic. This was Jay’s life’s work and the way it mythologized who he’d become is incredible. Every song has some gems in it. Feature list is slim so we can really focus on the hustler speaking. If you’re looking for hits, this album has “Ain’t No N****” with Foxy Brown, a rare exception to my “stop putting love songs on street albums” rule. “Feelin It” just feels right. “Dead Presidents” is one of the most rapped over instrumentals ever and its sequel shows up here in its legendary form. “Friend Or Foe”, “D’Evils”, “22 Two’s”… Jay-Z can rap. But this album just has that special quality of being a great altogether package. Add to that just the purity of 90’s New York rap that was still fully intact since this was released prior to Biggie’s unfortunate passing… and you have a masterpiece. It just so happens Hov has three other masterpieces (at least).
3. 4:44
*Gasp* OVER REASONABLE DOUBT???
Yup. Hov’s most recent album is one of the best rap albums in recent memory. After a decade and a half of trying to figure out his place in the game post-retirement, Jay-Z had finally cracked the code on making adult rap. Prior to this, the closest thing we had in terms of an A-list rapper making contemporary rap album in a mature, elderstatesman way was former rival Nas’ Life Is Good (2012). But throughout it’s short runtime there is no filler. It’s all substance and it’s all vulnerability. These are exactly the type of thoughts a man in Jay-Z’s shoes wakes up at 4:44 AM to ponder. Culture, infidelity, legacy, family, ego death, anxieties of all kinds. This is the most vulnerable Jay-Z has ever been and yet he still feels like he’s in complete control. The album can be an intimate listening experience in which you grow as person, or you can pluck the hits like “The Story Of OJ” or “Bam”, or “Caught Their Eyes” or “Family Feud” (the ACTUAL best song Jay-Z & Beyoncé have done together) and apply their gems as you see fit. Notice that’s like half of the album. Either way this album is a far cry from what we got from Jay in the 90’s, but he’s sacrificed none of the creativity on this one. It’s focused and raw, conscious and mature. There’s a reason he hasn’t given us an album since.
2. The Black Album
For a long time you couldn’t convince me this wasn’t his best album. If we going song for song for song for song, this is easily the best balance of hits and lyricism Hov has ever delivered. Looking back, this might be the greatest mid-life crisis of all time. Hov said in a recent interview with Kevin Hart that he retired because he felt burned out. Jigga held us down how many Summers? Damn. And he constantly battled the critics and adjusted and pivoted as he needed to. They sleep on my classic debut? Fine, I’ll give ‘em hits. I’m too pop? Fine, back to the streets. Forgot where I came from? Here’s a compilation. Matter fact, f*** all that. Here’s [the obvious next album on this list]. Of course the man was tired. This legacy is what makes him finding peace in vulnerability on 4:44 so potent, and yet it was under all of this stress that when he finally said goodbye to it all he delivered what many believe is his best work. The balance is truly perfected. “99 Problems” & “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” tour up radio with quotables for days. “Encore” and “What More Can I Say” have as much gravitas as any song he’d ever recorded. “PSA” might be the greatest rap interlude of all time. “Moment Of Clarity” gave us more introspection and honesty and vulnerability about his actual career. This internal struggle about not getting his respect led him to fade to black in such a miraculous fashion that he literally dropped his worst album when he came back. He may have burnt himself out, but the flames were marvelous.
The Blueprint
I’ve already reviewed Jay-Z’s best album in-depth here (and the embed link actually has the right cover art on it). But in case you want the shortened version, it’s sequenced very very very well and set a new standard for rap production with the popularization of Kanye type beats, I mean chipmunk soul. The layers to the lyricism on this album was starting to imply cracks in the armor that we just couldn’t see as mortals. Hov was the new GOD MC on this album. Infamously dropping on 9/11/2001, it still so crazy commercial success despite what that date is infamous for. This was Hov’s statement: “I WILL NOT LOSE”. Rap bravado in a nutshell. But he actually was king enough to back it up. “Takeover” proves it. The Blueprint was so good that Jay-Z kept reusing the name before he realized he just can’t recapture the moment. Nobody could. Only Jay-Z in 2001 in that specific state of mind exactly where he was at in his life could make The Blueprint.