Reasonable Doubt

If ever you wondered why there was such a big fuss about Jay-Z its right here on his debut. He hasn't made anything that comes close to this and even so his blueprint is etched across the genre of rap. This album, nearly made me cancel my Apple Music subscription because for some cruel reason Jay-Z removed ONLY this album (and later The Blueprint) from Apple's library, I would have preferred it the other way around. Where The Blueprint is the commercially viable record that had the kind of hooks everyone could bob their heads to, but this here, is raw and honest and anchored by a lyricism that leaves the verdict beyond reasonable doubt: This is a hip-hop "classic" and a debut that foreshadowed what Jay has become.

So anyway, on some dead nights, I listen to this record on youtube. Now I'm definitely not someone indebted to the 90's hip-hop scene, I do not worship at the altar of Biggie or Pac, and definitely dont consider myself a Jay-Z stan or anything along those lines. But this record is held in the arms of timelessness. It's stupid to imagine that this was his debut album, I feel Beyonce was attracted to Jay off of the strength of this record, and while that's a crude joke, there's a little truth hidden there too. "22 Two's" had me blushing off top, I mean the structure of the entire track as well as being flowed into a credible song, is a scary feat, there's no doubt why he decided to go with a live instrumentation. The balancing act of rhythm & rhyme casually mastered here.

But its "Dead Presidents II" where the album first clicked for me and since then I've always understood the pocket of sound in which Jay-Z lives and the crack rock world created, crafted and given its original starkly human shape right here.