Here’s a very exclusive clip of Jay-Z at the Grizzly Bear after party. You know, hanging. He is a rapper but he actually indies all the time. Just like you, young person.

Jay-Z f/ Drake – “Off That”

Jay-Z – “Reminder

from Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation, 9/11/09)

Let’s get one thing clear. Jigga didn’t hold it down six to nine summers on the strength of his album making ability. He did it off singles. Jay-Z generally makes either slapdash albums of a few major hits and poorly arranged/sometimes awesome filler (Vol. 1-2, BP2, Dynasty) or album albums that are almost completely devoid of hits. The records that probably come closest to finding a middle ground are Vol. 3 ^[1] and The Black Album. His consciously album oriented projects (Reasonable Doubt, Bleuprint,American Gangster) are simply exercises in brand building, an attempt to authenticate his success to purists and rockists.^[2] He sacrifices his hit making ability in the process or he tacks one or two obvious hits on there at the expensive of cohesion. Understand that if it wasn’t for “Ain’t No” he might have been Mic Geronimo with a slightly better debut. (more…)

What a difference thirteen years and one superfluous umlaut makes. (more…)

Janko Nilovic – “In The Space“

from Psyc Impressions (Montparnasse, 197?)

I’m on my YN shit.

Dion just keeps getting better while Shawn gets worse.

Via Soulstrut.

In case you missed it, Westcheddar recently unearthed this monumental 1999 footage of Jay-Z and the Roc-A-Fella click performing at The Tunnel. I’m just sitting down with it now. Highlights include a Beanie freestyle, Jay breathlessly rocking the first verse of “Jigga What? Jigga Who?” with no hype man and an early performance of “So Ghetto.” It’s almost surreal to think of these guys, a bunch of sweaty dudes in t-shirts and beanies talking about murdering you, were seen as “jiggy” in this era. This was what a concert performed by one of the biggest pop stars in the world looked like. Imagine Kanye or 50 or Wayne playing such a relatively small capacity venue (and to an almost completely black audience) in New York City in 2009.

You can’t. Because Jay-Z destroyed that. He made rappers turn corporate, made rappers tabloid fodder, made rappers interested in anything but rapping raps for rap fans. And now all we have are these youtubes. More after the jump. (more…)