The Black Album 2003 Album

Jay-Z

A borderline 4/5 as there aren't enough if any songs that I truly love on this to 4 it. I do enjoy it more than most if not all Jay-Z albums though. The main reason for this is that it contains the most enjoyable beats from the beginning to the end out of his discography. Not all are great but I enjoy enough enough to rate this highly. Not that it's ever been a strength compared to the best of them, lyrically and topically this wouldn't be his greatest as it's mostly brag rap, and the retirement talk of course ended up being bullshit, but I've never loved Jay's style on the microphone so the production is always my main interest and focus when listening to him. I feel though this album could have been slightly improved. For example, remove/reduce his mum on 'December 4th' which would improve the flow of the track, 'Encore' is good but I enjoy the harder version Jay and LP did, remove/dub down Cedric the Entertainer on 'Threat' and lastly, a few less samples during the song 'Lucifer' - I like Kanye who produced it, but he can really overdo the sampling sometimes. Just on 'Threat', it is a song that I used to love, but overtime it has dropped a level or two. Overall though, for me from an artist with a fairly overrated discography and legacy, this is the Jay-Z album I feel flows on the best from track to track without anything that is poor making it arguable his most consistently enjoyable release. Best Tracks: Encore, Threat, Moment of Clarity