![]() ![]() The closing verses on “Smile” and “Marcy Me” are among the most well-balanced and technically sound in a storied career defined by such performances. These are finely-tuned elegies for the old JAY-Z, for the old Brooklyn, for a broken marriage, for rap kayfabe. Some of the flows are rough around the edges, and he isn’t as nimble in and out of cadences as he used to be, but he compensates with carefully considered schemes and a fluidity that has come to characterize his work. There’s mention of Solange drama and a sneak Kanye diss, but that’s flotsam around the heart of the record. Jay hasn’t been this precise or proficient in a decade, perhaps because he’s finally interested in disclosing the realest parts of himself. Inside these personal revelations, one of rap’s greatest thinkers rediscovers his sharpness. Every angle he creates is informed by blackness (on “Legacy” he raps, “We gon’ start a society within a society/That’s major, just like the Negro League/There was a time America wouldn’t let us ball/Those times are now back”), as “The Story of O.J.” states outright in its hook and “Moonlight” insinuates more subtly. But, above all else, 4:44 is about legacy: how Jay will be remembered, what he’s leaving to his children, what he’s done for the culture, and what he’s trying to do for society. It only takes JAY-Z 36 minutes to create the historical artifact he’s wanted to make for years, a tell-all document to be hung in the halls of rap about infidelity and outgrowing friends, the way family shapes us and the way we carry those burdens into parenthood, and about evolving into more complete versions of ourselves. This is Hov’s gospel, a Shawn Carter retrospective measuring missteps and triumphs, wondering aloud if his work will appreciate in value, and what exactly is worth valuing. Fatherhood has eroded some of that cool, but 4:44 deconstructs an entire worldview. Before, he was unfadable, the supreme hustler without error. The album is certainly built around a betrayal, but his duplicity, the corresponding apology, and his reassessment are vehicles for his own maturation. 4:44 isn’t JAY-Z’s Lemonade, a response to Lemonade, or a Lemonade companion piece. ![]()
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