Jay Z has established himself as one of the legends of the rap game. MCs across the country have hailed the Brooklynite as one of their favorites and Chicago’s Chi City is no different. In a recent episode of Best Albums, he names Hov’s The Black Album as one of the most influential of his career.
“I fell in love with it when he announced that he was gonna quit,” Chi City says. “I was like, ‘What? Hell no.’ This is the last album, so I sat down, studied the whole album front to back ’cause I’m like, ‘Man, this might be the only last piece of work I get from Jay Z.’ And I really admire his business and just his music overall, his creativity. I was kinda low-key heartbroken. I’m like shit, this can’t be it.”
And it wasn’t it. Chi City admits that perhaps Jay Z’s best work came after the 2003 release of The Black Album, but the LP’s tracks “99 Problems” and “What More Can I Say?” resonated with him more than any other Jigga anthem.
“I had a whole bunch of problems when that shit came out,” Chi City says of the Rick Rubin-produced “99 Problems.” “So when that song came out, ’99 Problems’ was like the anthem, ’cause I was like you know what, I got all these damn problems, but whatever’s bothering me right now ain’t gonna be no more.”
He continues by saying the impact of The Black Album is felt today because it allowed artists like Kendrick Lamar to experiment with his voice. Jay Z was also a pioneer of balancing lyricism and entertainment.
“To me, that’s why he the greatest,” Chi City says of tracks such as “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” “There’s only very few artists that can actually pull it off. Drake’s been able to pull it off now. Kendrick’s pulling it off now, but outside of them, which to me, I think they all studied Jay Z, he’s the only one that can kinda give you that edge and best of both worlds.”
Another standout track is “Lucifer,” which sampled Max Romeo’s “Chase the Devil.” Chi City explains how the song helped him understand the creative process, including sampling.
“A lot of times they say you’re supposed to study music, but I ain’t know that shit,” he shares. “I’m like this is the first time I heard it, I’m like this is crazy. Then I actually seen the behind the scenes of him making the ‘Lucifer’ and I’m like whoa that’s crazy how he actually put that together. So to hear the original after I seen where he got it from, it’s like damn, I didn’t even know you can take an older song where that’s the process they go through to get the finished record and product.”
He salutes fellow Chicagoan Kanye West, who was behind the boards for “Lucifer.” He explains how Jay Z and ‘Ye were able to create a memorable sound that he hadn’t heard before yet has carried Kanye’s legacy into today’s sound.
“Now, everybody got Kanye juice a little bit,” he says. “Kanye’s still Kanye, but they use a lot of his juice up. But at the time, he’s the only one that had the juice then. So hearing that at that point in time was like who’s sampling like that? Who’s rapping over the beat yelling out the devil the whole song? They was doing some new shit. So it was cool.”
Overall, Chi City rates The Black Album a 10 sonically. He says that in an era where there was a lot of competition to stay one step ahead, Hov seemed confident in continuing to carve his own lane. Even if it was his last hurrah.
“In my opinion, Jay Z’s the only one that took his sound but just kept elevating it,” he says. “He didn’t necessarily say ‘Aw snap music’s new, so let me do a whole bunch of snap music now.’ No, it was like, ‘Ima take this Jay Z sound people fell in love with from Reasonable Doubt and up and just elevate it.’ So the production on that shit was like damn, it’s him.”