Jay-Z delivery fails on great production

American Gangster has strong beats but poor execution.

By Jordan Sargent, Assistant Editor
Nov. 13, 2007

By now you probably know the back story behind Jay-Z's 10th studio album, American Gangster: Jay saw an advance screening of the Denzel Washington movie of the same name and was inspired by the film's drug-pusher-turned-kingpin narrative.

Jay was inspired so much by the film, we've been told, that he decided to record a similar "concept" album, one that would see him returning to the grittiness of his past after last year's maligned (and truly awful) Kingdom Come.

How much truth there is to this storyline is something I guess we'll never know.

But don't think it a coincidence that the album's announcement came days after Kanye West (a longtime Jay comrade and protégé) and his album Graduation successfully trounced 50 Cent's Curtis, moving some 950,000-plus copies in the process, the highest one-week sales total in more than two years.

It was the clearest signal yet that Kanye is the biggest pop star in the world, and by default the biggest rapper in the world, which is more pertinent to the matters at hand here.

Biggest rapper in the world used to be a crown Jay wore pretty comfortably, and I'm willing to bet that endlessly hearing about the only two guys who could rightfully claim that crown from him — 50 Cent (who's sold more records than Jay lately) and Kanye West (who's made better albums) — was just as much an "inspiration" as some crime movie.

And Jay's a smart businessman (or business, man). He knew that after his flaccid last album, one that was critically panned and had its second and third singles make as much noise on the chart as Huey's second and third singles, that American Gangster needed to be an event — as much for its sake as for his.

And in that regard, American Gangster is kind of a rousing success. Timing it with the release of one of the most hyped movies of the year doesn't hurt, but the album feels and sounds how a proper event album should. Its beats are all enveloping, cinematic and blustering. If they're not the best collection of beats Jay has had to work with in his career, then they're definitely the most cohesive, mining '70s soul and funk for plaintive, wistful samples that fit Jay and his narrative like a glove. The word "lush" has been thrown around, and that's about a perfect description.

So, what's not to love then, right? Well, American Gangster's failings fall solely on Jay's shoulders. His wordplay is as dense and thorny as advertised — undoubtedly a step in the right direction no matter what I (or anyone) thinks of the album — but he, almost shockingly, has an awful time working these beats.

His cadences on the album's opening two songs (not including the bothersome intro) are dreadfully breathy, as if the beats are almost swallowing him. In other places, like on the plodding "No Hook" and "I Know," Jay tries to pack too many words into his verses and ends up derailing them as he choppily delivers the lines.

It isn't all that that bad, though. On "Success" Jay sounds invigorated by No I.D's great wailing organ beat, although a near-classic spot from Nas overshadows his verses. Even sparse first single "Blue Magic," included here as a bonus track, sounds nice tacked on at the end, its knottiness benefiting from the album's bombast.

Those bombastic beats are the best part of American Gangster though, and the real reason why the album deserves your ear. Jay calls it "black superhero music."

Too bad he's his own kryptonite.

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Jay-Z delivery fails on great production

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