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Kingdom Come

Jay-Z

HipHopIsDead by ONI, 6/15/07

Jay-Z never left, I don’t care what anybody says. His last studio album was released in 2003. Some active rappers who never claim retirement take that much time to gather their thoughts between albums. Let’s not forget the many guest features and other tracks Jay had been doing. Plus the fact that he never disappeared from the magazine covers, radio shows, or television shows of the hip hop world.

Kingdom Come should be called The Black Album 2 with the first single “What More Can I Say Again”. It has the exact same theme that the Black Album had: Jay-Z is saying that he’s more mature than all the other rappers; he’s the best rapper, etc. Jay-Z tells us this over and over unlike a Nas who showed us in Hip Hop Is Dead. Kingdom Come is full of things that were once dope, but now just plain annoying: excessive whisper flow, a ridiculous amount of subliminals, a disproportionately large sense of grandeur and greatness, and the same played out comparisons to people like Michael Jordan and Bruce Wayne that he’s been doing for years now. I think the album does a good job of teaching us one very important lesson: too much of anything is bad.

The Martha Stewart may be far from Jewish, but certainly not that far from stupid. Why, Hov, Why? Jay-Z clearly made this album only to further his own ego. Think about it. There’s no challenge in getting a “sure shot” line up of expensive beats and spitting the same old shit to them. Jordan didn’t want to make a run for a seventh championship because the challenge was gone. Jay-Z, take heed. It’s funny that Hova originally was going to stop rapping after Reasonable Doubt and focus on business. I’m happy that he didn’t and I think that The Blueprint, which came out after he was in the game for five years, would have been a great ending. Five years since Blueprint was released - on that crazy day when the World Trade Center crumbled - he continues to further tarnish his image like Michael did on the Wizards. Let this be a lesson to young artists in the game like Lupe Fiasco who has openly promised to put out three albums and then stop. Lupe, please do what you say. Unless, that is, you still have something novel to say. Jay-Z said that hip hop hasn’t been the same since he “left”. He came back to resurrect hip hop. But hip hop is an art centered around creativity. So to come back and say what you said three years ago does nothing to help hip hop. Carlito was supposed to get out of the game but never seemed to completely get out. We all know what happens at the end of the movie. Jay-Z, I’m content with the classics you have now. Why can’t you be?

Now that I’ve mentioned every negative thing that my brain could conjure about Jay-Z, I can get on to why Kindgom Come is such a good album. If you dig past all the bullshit that this album contains and get down to the true nitty gritty, you can’t help but realize that this self-proclaimed ‘kingpin of the ink pen’ can still rap. His ability to flow is ridiculous. Most people wouldn’t understand how difficult it is to transition so cohesively between bars unless you’ve attempted to write 70 minutes worth of lyrics yourself. A great example is on the last verse of “Do You Wanna Ride?” where the master of the double entendre basically blacks out like Will Ferrell answering that debate question on Old School. There are a number of sparks of brilliance scattered throughout the whole album. It’s just a matter of involuntarily blocking out everything else that is added to big industry albums that take away from the ability of a true MC to discover this.

Kingdom Come won’t have the same effect in 2016 that Reasonable Doubt has in 2006. But, if you have a good ear you will realize the album showcases that underneath that expensive business suit and Hollywood glitz lies that “skinny nigga on the boat” still feeling he has something to prove with a cranium full of lines simply waiting to spew out into another album.