![]() And when he explores the moral ambiguity of his business, it isn’t for pity or forgiveness, but to externalize a reality he knows doesn’t make sense (“Regrets”). ![]() He can twist words for sport (“22 Two’s”) and flex like a battle rapper (the Biggie-featuring “Brooklyn’s Finest”). The vision is big-wealth, mobility, autonomy-but the budget is small and the attitude scrappy. “We hustle out of a sense of hopelessness,” he says on the intro to “Can I Live.” “Sort of a desperation/Through that desperation, we become addicted/Sort of like the fiends we accustomed to servin’.” He may be rich-or at least on his way-but with beats so spare and a delivery so quietly intense, you could mistake him for starving. If you envy him, it’s not for what he has, but for how methodically he came by it. ![]() If you admire him, it isn’t for his friendliness but his discipline. The hitch, such as it is, may have been persona: Where Nas represented writerly introspection and Biggie raw charisma, Jay was somewhere in between: a born hustler who touted the high life but seemed too preoccupied to enjoy it. In retrospect, it's hard to understand why: His skills are obvious, and the subject matter, while familiar-the perils and spoils of the drug trade-is rendered with a density that makes it feel new. JAY-Z’s 1996 debut wasn’t an instant classic.
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