30-Something Hip-Hop: A Review Of Jay-Z's Kingdom Come and Definitely Not One of the Juggaknots' Use Your Confusion

So your boy is back. Held you down for x amount of summers. Now it’s the winter’s turn (uh…yeah). You know, the one who had a retirement album, called it ‘Black’ and now side-stepped some of his duties as President of Def Jam to drop his ‘comeback’ album entitled Kingdom Come.

By now, everyone has heard the first single, 'Show Me What You Got' dropped with much fanfare to much blahzay returns. I mean, he’s even got NASCAR drivers in the video…yes, cross-marketing was the priority. In fact, if you’re a fan or are up on your hip-hop, you’ve probably heard a couple of rappers give the track the Renegade business without inviting Hov to join in: AZ absolutely murdered it, then more recently Lil’ Wayne, gulp, did the same (cough…getting affiliated with the Weezy bandwagon is an extremely new look…). Fortunately, a de facto B-Side was leaked; the Just Blaze title track where Jus tributes Rick James by masterly rearranging Super Freak to the point of virtually over-shadowing Jay’s super-hero motif-based rhymes. Overall, an impressive piece of hip-hop, but it really begs the question: ‘how is the album gonna sound?’

Since Shawn Carter adopted the Jay-Z moniker and dropped his first non-Jaz-O assisted work, the seminal (but in no way, shape or form better than Only Built 4 Cuban Linx) Reasonable Doubt, he has experienced two extraordinary pieces of luck on root to becoming possibly the most influential rapper of his time. First, Biggie died, leaving a (sigh) ‘large’ vacancy at the top of the hip-hop hierarchy. Secondly, white people/popular culture reached out to enthusiastically accept ‘rap’ and started buying it in large numbers. After a brief slip up (that brick ‘Sunshine’ that still owes an apology to ‘Rockin’ It’, Alexander O’Neal and anyone who caught a seizure from the damn video…) Jay was able to string together a track record of hits summer after summer while still carefully maintaining his original image as a man of the streets, ultimately vaulting him to iconic status. Everybody loved him, and his power was seemingly limitless, as a revisionist hip-hop history was written with every ‘borrowed’ rhyme of Christopher Wallace. Only a minor ‘Ethering’ kept his track record from being unblemished, but by pushing a ‘sales controls stats’ agenda (assist white folks), Jay-Z became arguably the most popular rapper on the planet, so acclaimed that many who have no business acclaiming anything in the hip-hop world jumped on the joc..err, Roc Bandwagon. His branding acumen led to the aforementioned job as Def Jam president, where he was able to ignore such acts as the Roots and Method Man to bring you his comeback album as a fourth quarter release guaranteed to make his cooperate overlords brim with pleasure. And get him a new HP commercial.

Or maybe not. The Black Album’s short term marketing strategy has seeming set Mr. Carter up for a significant backlash: this ‘rap needs me’ arrogance has always been more befitting to the sullen artist’s personality of Nas, than ‘man of the people’ Jay. At a time where those in charge need to put their presidency where your mouth is, how does this hip-hop mid-term election, Kingdom Come, really stack up?

Well, considering the advance poll results where extremely shaky at best(...cough...Weezy...), the album has its moments. But if you’re expecting greatness out of Shawn, go back to your ‘Best of’ RD/ Blueprint/ Black Album compilation, because this ain’t it. But it’s an interesting look into a man trying to keep his place at the top of an industry where regardless how old he tells you he is (still in your 30’s Shawn…really?), its still way too old. Maybe consider this his ‘4-5’ album or possibly his “Wizards’ joint. Even the most ardent Jay-Z fan might have to admit, “damn, Hov can’t get to the rim like he used to…”

Shawn uses Kingdom Come to get some things off his chest, and progressively move away from his ‘Money Ain’t a Thing’ persona to settle into a new ‘Dime-Store Philosophizing Rap Guru’ one. Thanks to years of ‘subtle’ lyrical prodding, most of his fan base have taken Jay’s word to be fitting of his ‘Hova’ moniker, so this should be a natural fit for the aging rapper (if you don’t think Jay is the deepest of cats, just head to the ‘Hater’ isle to find some accessories…). For the most part, it’s the musical landscape that many will find under-whelming. And the most obvious slip-ups predictably occur with his cross-over material, which will no doubt be considered filler in the ‘Change Clothes’, ‘Justify My Thug’ (just cringed even giving type to that booty ish…) vein.

The previously addressed luke-warmness of ‘Show Me What You Got’ joins the Neptune produced, no-longer ‘Burn’-ing Usher stamped ‘Anything’ and the Bey-Z ‘shoulda been left on B’s album’, puke-inducing shout out to Gwyneth and Chris, anti-gully “Hollywood” as being sonically and (for some, surprisingly) lyrically sub-par. So much so lyrically, that bringing up specific ‘boo’ examples is really just a waste of everyone’s time. And the Kanye–produced, John Legend combo joint ‘Do U Wanna Ride’ is just flat out disappointing. But to be fair, Kanye did drop the sped-up sample approach, choosing instead to awkwardly loop the ‘Left My Wallet in El Segundo’ drums.

Continuing with the anti-gully fair, I’ve been trying to find a way to describe the final track, the lead Coldplay guy-assisted ‘Beach Chair’ without using the word ‘homo’. And apparently I just failed. It’s a meandering little ditty, where Hov tries to dig deep, coming up with “Life is just a beach chair.” Word. Dead f@!^in’ Presidents don’t represent me. Now Jay-Z fans, this track will be the ultimate test of whether you still really, really ride with Shawn. If you can dig, “No compass comes with this life/Just eyes/So to map it out you must look inside/ Sure, books can guide you but your heart defines you…Chica/ the corazon is what brought us home…” congratulations, you are still an official rider (he gets deep in two languages!!). For those of you who don’t necessarily think not-being Jim Jones makes you a good lyricist, you may be less convinced. But seriously, I don’t understand dude at times: just as you grow weary with the clichéd placation-heavy tune, he makes what could be a self-effacing reference about giving you ‘songs like a Halmark card’, until you realize, he means that in a good way. Insert Clipse “Uuuughhh”.

And it’s this, “we don’t believe you’ lack of depth that resounds on the other ‘grown-man’ effort (they don’t call it ‘conscious’ no mo’). In Minority Report, Jay scolds himself for not doing enough for Katrina victims while reminding us he dropped a mil on the cause, after which, ‘no homo’ Ne-Yo takes his piece out of his dancer’s mouth long enough to scold the rest of us for not caring. Nice.

So where does this album work? When Jay brings back that ‘A Million and One’ swagger, although none of these tracks hit with the force of a Premier joint. The Dr. Dre and Affiliates Inc. produced ‘Lost Ones’ and ’30-Something’ do bump lovely and give Hov a chance to address those lingering ‘hater’ issues, while trying to convince young fans that ’30 is the new 20…’. Uh huh. Good luck with that. But these songs come off more as a throwback, an aside to those listeners who were actually around to buy the ‘Purple Tape’ (and, no doubt, conclude it’s a better album than RD). The Dipse..uh, haters are more directly addressed in the synthesizer-heavy Swiss Beat (surprise!) ‘Dig a Hole’, helped out by what appears to be an angry sounding Ginuwine on the hook (it’s not him tho…). It’ll make you think before you shoot that jump shot. But somehow, I’m not so sure it’ll stop all the ‘Baaaaaaallin!” The rest of the tracks are solid and have potential to grow on the listener, but the two superior Just Blaze joints are somewhat scuttled by either a weak hook (‘Oh My God’) or uninspired rhymes (the Super Freaky title track...and we get it, you're like a super hero in the rap game).

So this is what it really comes down to. The master of the post-Golden era (or Post post-Golden era, depending how you look at it) hip-hop scene is finally succumbing to the inevitable physics of it all? How you view this album comes down to expectation and unfortunately for Shawn, it’s at a pretty high level. But really, all his talk of ‘best album ever’ was saved for the retirement album. This ‘Un-retirement’ album should be a marketing success just on principle alone, in spite of the choice of lead single. And even the biggest Nas fan would have to admit that Jay still has an overall ‘lyrical swag’ that would keep him in anybody’s Top 5. This review may sound harsh, but that’s what happens when you proclaim yourself as a messiah…of any kind. It may be instinct to compare this album to his past catalogue, and this effort may not seem so bad in that respect. Because honestly, was Izzo that good a song? I mean, really.

‘Kingdom Come’ may begin the erosion of Jay-Z’s wild popularity, but it’ll be just part of a longer, slower process until ‘Baaaaallin’ in general becomes passé in Hip-Hop (again, for those that weren’t around…this was the case at one point…sisssies!! And LL is still bitter about it…). I mean can anyone else say they are part owner of a ball team? And although he may not live up to his own, possibly-inflated lyrical standards, surrounding himself with Young Jeezy and beefing with Jim Jones can’t possibly hurt in that respect. At the end of the day, nobody has been able to put together lyrical ability, street cred and cross-over appeal like Jay since the passing of Big. People have a reason to hate, despite his ‘altruistic’ efforts at making ‘grown-man’ music. Lyricists hate on his fame and/or paper. Dope boys hate on the new image while aspiring to it. And ladies, you know you’ve said some things about B. Be honest (Tamara…et tu?). At least about her hair (tell a white girl…).

Ultimately, Kingdom Come will give the haters more fuel. And this album wasn’t even the best one I got my hands on this weekend: that honor belongs to the Juggaknots’ ‘Use Your Confusion’. Now before you write this off as nonsense, you really need to check out that joint…it’s a straight banger.