Didn't Jay-Z already do his "A Milli" remix? Just kidding, he totally did, and it was called "A Billi". A financial goal he has yet to achieve-- unless those rich-person-counters at Forbes are hating on Hova, too, but if so wouldn't he have rapped about it?-- which could go some way to explain this new, Kanye West-produced single. It was impossible to ignore the marketing brilliance of premiering the song alongside West during Yeezy's recent Madison Square Garden stand and announcing, "Blueprint 3!" Unfortunately, now that you can hear "Jockin' Jay-Z" at higher quality and that live-show aura has dissipated, it's also hard to detect a song more interesting than the business savvy behind it.
The beat couldn't be more timely, though not because it sounds like many of the warm, organic, soulful productions West has continued to do so well recently, or even the European influences on West's own Graduation. The live version's minimal, bass-heavy pulse is still there, but with improved sound quality the repeated vocal snippet (pitched-down, at least at first, rather than pitched-up like on "A Milli") and that high-pitched background whine both have a lot in common with Lil Wayne's most ubiquitous The Carter III single. Jay even alludes to the one C3 song no one but me seems to like, singing, "Crooked officer, crooked officer," as if he were Bobby Valentino.
Hova's phrasing here is slack, Kingdom Come-forgettable, but he makes a few potentially business-smart bets. First, that people think rap about the recession is "depressing" ("I ain't no politician" -- oh rly?). And second, that keeping up a weeks-old beef with Noel Gallagher, who has since moved onto saying other stupid shit, will generate some easy publicity. A lot of people will talk about this song, and it repeats Jay's name a bunch of times, so as marketing, it's probably gonna be a huge success, no matter its actual merits. And, if you read The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz on political ads even he calls "misleading," you know that the picture a commercial paints about someone is really the most important thing.
MP3:> Jay-Z: "Jockin' Jay-Z" (zShare link; get it while it lasts)
[apparently from Blueprint 3]
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Original Story: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/...
