Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
After months of speculation, its now official: Jay-Z will be releasing an album in November. Rolling Stone is reporting that the album, tentatively titled Presidential Gala, will be released on November 14th. SOHH says that the first single, "Show Me What You Got," will be released in October.
With other important releases on Def Jam's schedule coming up in the same time frame, most notably Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead, the question could (and will) be asked if its a conflict of interest for the president of a major record label to be putting out his own album. Def Jam Hall of Famer LL Cool J has already questioned Jay-Z's motives as president (though with 50 Cent apparently coaching him, its hard to see that as much more than a publicity stunt to revive a fading career).
I don't see how Jay-Z putting out an album can have a negative impact on other Def Jam artists, though, unless Nas' album gets shelved so that it doesn't compete with Jay's during the holiday shopping season. The chances of that happening are about as likely as Jay staying in retirement. Jay's position as President of Def Jam seems to be primarily a promotional ploy for the label anyway (how hands on do you think Jay-Z really is in the day to day operations of the label?), and the release of a highly anticipated album is the best form of promotion. Whenever a label puts out an album that breaks platinum status, and there's no question Jay's album will break the 1 million mark, subsequent releases under the label from lesser artists benefit just from association (see: Death Row, G-Unit).
For today's track, I'm taking it way back to one of the first tracks Jay ever recorded, in the late 80's: Jaz-O's The Originators. The song features a (relatively) young Shawn Corey Carter, at the time using the name JZ, spitting rhymes with a sped-up style reminiscent of Fu Schnickens. For much of his early career, Jay continued to use an up tempo flow. It wasn't until he heard Nas' Illmatic that he decided to slow things down and use the rhyming style that he is better known for these days. Its also interesting to note the Nubian and Muslim references in the song. Certainly not something you'd expect on a Jay-Z track these days.
The Originators
While Jay-Z and Big Jaz later did a sequel to the song, "Originator 99" on Vol 2: Hard Knock Life, they eventually had a falling out. Things went sour after Jaz did an interview with The Source complaining that Jay had not done much in the way to help him get his career back on track. After several diss tracks released from both sides, things seemed to have quieted down between the two. However, Jay-Z decided not to bring Jaz-O on stage for the 10th Anniversary Reasonable Doubt concert, saying that Jaz continued to "hold onto baggage" from the argument.
9/12/2006 10:35:32 AM posted by Fresh