Jay-Z, "4:44"

Creating a thread because I'm irrationally hopeful.

http://www.stereogum.com/1947671/jay-z-announces-new-album-444-out-next-week/news/

Oh, sorry, "JAY-Z"

tidal-sprint

the story of O.J.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji0_Ucxrk_k

yikes at the antisemitism??!

hey jay i thought antisemitism wasn't "hot" - guess fashions have changed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNFXHoaf4Vs

anti-Semitism? In regards to what?

I did read a blurb that said No ID is doing the whole record

Which is the only thing that makes me kinda interested, I'm not sure Jay's broken flow is repairable, but maybe the one (and not particular fashionable) producer indicates they are trying to make an actually album

did u listen to the song?

the story of oj snippet does not get me excited about this album

Is it even possible to listen to ANY of these songs outside of Tidal?

The 30 second snippets I can heard without joining have me intrigued, but, nah not joining Tidal

There's a line about Jews owning all the properly in America.

Property.

guess now we know why the umlaut

haven't heard this yet / probably won't but I feel I can judge its contents by that line and the bland title alone

jay is my favorite rapper ever, but i don't see any reason to listen to his music in 2017

Tracer: no that YouTube was broken don't have Tidal

here's the frank ocean track posted unheard
http://mp3waxx.com/jobfolders/jayzcte/index.php

Jay-zZz

(pronounced "zed")

listened to that song, jay sounds terrible

Jay-Z retire bitch

this is lame lol

Is it even possible to listen to ANY of these songs outside of Tidal?

Go to your neighborhood high-end streetwear store. Just heard a few songs there while browsing Visvim jackets.

this sounds really good to my ears. low key but good.

He already retired. Not sure what this is

twins trust fund

This is actually really great

Fuck this shit that line about jewish ppl is gross

He could have at least renamed himself before this release

JMZ for example

The "atonement" shit here is some make-yourself-feel-better showy cringey garbage. And Shakey OTM.

deray mckesson has 4:44 in his twitter display name now so you know this album must be good

so messy re eric benet

this albums kinda...mellow

re: the judaism line this thread has some context

To jay z's jewish people own property line: if he had said in Brooklyn rather than in America I would've found it accurate.

— AirDaniel (@AirgoDaniel) July 1, 2017

click through though for the full thread

Rmde at that bullshit

"Some people of this ethnic group did this one thing in a specific context ergo the broader generalizatipn is excusable" is bad logic with bad consequences

Where is mordy

But i like how he puts the argument out there and then notes its irrelevance at the end, cool tactic bro

Ok i'm going back to vacatipn now

Vacation even

how do you even listen to rap music

angrily

I agree with Οὖτις, it's a bad and dumb line and even quasi-rationalizing it is bullshit

the prosperity gospel / progress-through-wealth-accumulation shit is also bad and dumb. I think this of anyone but it's doubly nauseous to hear it from such an obscenely wealthy person

i didn't want the thread to be all about that line but it literally was the first song (only!) song i heard and i was kind of low-key getting into it and suddenly i'm like THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY

D-40 that is some bullshit. If you need five (lol) tweets to try and get away with blatant anti-semitism you are doing it wrong. Shakey and Simon H otm. It's dumb, it's bullshit quasi-rationalizing. Most of all this dude is passé; never thought Jay-Z would be so bad at being a rapper but here we are...

Tbh i'd be more inclined to give him a pass if he was just some dumb ignorant kid from the projects, but this is Jay-Z, intelligent middle aged multi-millionaire.

The "he doesn't know what he's talking about because of his limited frame of reference" defense doesnt hold any water at this stage in his career.

Plus he's in the Illuminati

shakey otm

fwiw i think this is the smartest response i've seen to the line + gets at some of my feelings about it
https://jewishphilosophyplace.com/2017/06/30/jay-z-jews-and-all-the-property-financial-independence-444/

Oh ffs you guys

i don't think his point was that jay z should be "excused" for it, the last tweet of the stream wasn't a mea culpa it was part of the overall line of thinking

Anyway this is good too

Please can someone Black AND Jewish write about Jay-Z's "Jews own all the property in America" mess before the wypipo get to it 😑

— Rebecca Pierce (@aptly_engineerd) June 30, 2017

oh give me a fucking break. corny whites didn't make the line bad.

to be clear we have made a loooot of things bad, just not this.

Haha, Jay Z is a fucking idiot.

does deej not know that he's like one of the whitest ppl around

I said read the thread dumbass not the individual tweet

This selective outrage is weird, that's all. Have you guys listened to jay z before? One of his biggest hits is called "big pimpin". His catalog is full of misogyny and casual violence. im not saying this excuses what he said, it's an ideologically stupid statement, but you could swear you've never heard a rap album before

thread was solid, also confirmed that the jay line was bad

Did I say the line was good?

you're kind of wasting a lot of time defending it!

Mordy engages with rap was just as useless but much funnier on the kitty pryde thread

like i appreciate the perspective shared by that last twitter thread but i thought the line was bad before and still think it's bad, what are we even arguing about

you're kind of wasting a lot of time defending it!

― k3vin k., Sunday, July 2, 2017 11:58 AM (twenty-two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not fucking defending it you dumbass

like i appreciate the perspective shared by that last twitter thread but i thought the line was bad before and still think it's bad, what are we even arguing about

This

That jay's reference isn't an empty recitation of anti semetic stereotypes but has a context in which it's meant to be understood that is different than white ppl being anti semetic or conspiratorial ? The original thread I linked said the same. Yes, its still wrong, but it's wrong in a different way

I think taking this point in is meaningful when posting that jay's line about Jewish people is "gross" etc

So let's call this gross shit out, but keep the perspective that Jews could own property in the US at a time when Black people WERE property

— Rebecca Pierce (@aptly_engineerd) June 30, 2017

the point is jay does not have license to say that you don't need to show me your work, is basically what i'm saying

I just think it's weird when ppl get selectively mad about rap lyrics when jay built his career on prosperity gospel bs & misogyny, his is not an ideology that is right or good but ppl can draw on it for its emotional & motivational power in metaphoric terms & I don't see how this undercuts that any more than all the times he's said "bitch"

Or argued that capitalism is redemption

"this is bad but those other things from the past were also bad so wtf?" is not a good argument. and I think it's fair to criticize/scrutinize people extra when they come to occupy a position of incredible wealth and influence.

I'm not arguing "things from the past" I'm talking about his ideology in general

And the ideology of rap music ppl arguing w me now consume regularly

most rap is not being marketed as "here is a grown-ass adult giving you some real talk having come alive to his mistakes." that adds a level of insidiousness. for that and already-stated reasons I think extra scrutiny is fair game.

I think the line def perpetuates a stereotype that's anti-Semitic but also there's way more virulent stuff said in older rap esp by a lot of ppl with 5 percent/NOI affiliations

Call it prosperity gospel but there's a long history of art that dealt in ways that were loaded at best and offensive at worst with the idea of other races being the primary property holders and business owners in black communities. Everything from Do The Right Thing to Black Korea.

I think Jay is wrong to perpetuate this stuff esp because of his age and experience but this is a mild expression of ideas that have been in rap for along time. And a very complex dynamic too as when Griff and PE lashed out in much worse ways even though they were primarily championed and put on in the industry by Jewish men. Then again there's part of me that's always a dumb farm kid from Minnesota no matter what I do there's part of Jay that's Marcy.

I still haven't been able to hear this but I think this line is probably an outgrowth of the uneasy history of African Americans and Jewish ppl in hip hop that someone qualified should write a book on.

Though I never saw Jay as doctrinaire or truly bigoted the way that, for example, at least some of Brand Nubian are.

All this is not to say there line should be waved off.

That's a good way of putting it altho I'd go deeper outside of hip hop ... it's a response to black people being systemically and directly shut out of investment opportunities, I almost feel like that line is jay being cynical about what he thinks his intended audience believes is true even if he doesn't & this is his way of trying to say he's still on the people's side cuz ppl like to talk about him being illuminati or whatever

Again not saying that makes it ok but I think observing that this is coming from someone trying to encourage ppl who've been actively prevented from being able to control wealth is a very relevant point, and it means something different than when it's coming from a trump supporter, and that pointing out the qualitative difference is not the same as making excuses rationalizing or justifying it

I can certainly appreciate all that. I think I also hold Jay to a higher standard than his peers (or former peers) because he and Bey are essentially American royalty at this point and are perceived with literally that level of reverence by a lot of people, in a way almost no other celebs I can think of are.

Yeah much as i agree w and understand matt's points about precedents and the complex history, it's not 1989 and jay is not PE or Lord Jammar.

It's 30 yrs later and for Jay to deploy the stereotype like that is just willfully stupid.

I think the line def perpetuates a stereotype that's anti-Semitic but also there's way more virulent stuff said in older rap esp by a lot of ppl with 5 percent/NOI affiliations

Call it prosperity gospel but there's a long history of art that dealt in ways that were loaded at best and offensive at worst with the idea of other races being the primary property holders and business owners in black communities. Everything from Do The Right Thing to Black Korea.

I think Jay is wrong to perpetuate this stuff esp because of his age and experience but this is a mild expression of ideas that have been in rap for along time. And a very complex dynamic too as when Griff and PE lashed out in much worse ways even though they were primarily championed and put on in the industry by Jewish men. Then again there's part of me that's always a dumb farm kid from Minnesota no matter what I do there's part of Jay that's Marcy.

I still haven't been able to hear this but I think this line is probably an outgrowth of the uneasy history of African Americans and Jewish ppl in hip hop that someone qualified should write a book on.

Though I never saw Jay as doctrinaire or truly bigoted the way that, for example, at least some of Brand Nubian are.

All this is not to say there line should be waved off.

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, July 2, 2017 1:27 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sharing because I think this nails it. It's a gross line on an otherwise solid album.

This would've undercut what Jay was expressing, but how much better would the line "never go Eric Benet" have been if it'd been "never go full Eric Benet"?

This is an album where that line shares space with a poignant song about his lesbian mom.

It's not a conspiracy being perpetuated that white people exploit these communities though, "black Korea" and lines like this are right about a dynamic but wrong about the specifics (and in harmful ways, yes)

The video (not on YouTube) has a whole lot more to unpack than just that line.

Hmm. Video is all over Twitter, but that link ^ only is a clip from it. Maybe this works.

The video for 'The Story Of OJ' track from 4:44 is so sick pic.twitter.com/ym5I9vdlcd

— ㅤ🇨🇩🇸🇱 (@FlavsNB) June 30, 2017

"Family Feud," one of the tracks I like most here, becomes more interesting if you hear Bey's "higher" loop interchangeably as "liar"

the line def perpetuates a stereotype that's anti-Semitic but also there's way more virulent stuff said in older rap esp by a lot of ppl with 5 percent/NOI affiliations

Please give examples. Not that I don't believe you, I'm just very curious about this sort of thing.

Plus, fuck it. This stuff should be out in the open. Rappers should be forced to own up to their own hateful shit. Like, A Tribe Called Quest should get some shit for "Georgie Porgy" even if it was 25 years ago.

There are a lot of valid reasons why these things get called out now, paramount is the internet/social media: everything is more visible/out in the open now than it ever was.

It's not a conspiracy being perpetuated that white people exploit these communities though, "black Korea" and lines like this are right about a dynamic but wrong about the specifics (and in harmful ways, yes)

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Sunday, July 2, 2017 2:22 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually it's not that it's wrong in the specifics as much as it is overly specific likely bc of jay's own experiences in Brooklyn from which he extrapolated incorrectly (or he's just being cynical in an effort to connect with Just Folks and doesn't really care)

(...doesn't really care that he's perpetuating a harmful stereotype abt Jews I mean)

"a harmful stereotype about jews" = an interesting way of describing THE harmful stereotype about jews, the ultimate one, the ur-text of racist conspiracy theories

i get that specific circumstances in jay's life produced a willingness to repeat this ignorant shit. that makes him different from anyone else how? we all have specific circumstances that point us in certain directions. i grew up in rural east tennessee. i still struggle with the damage that caused my racial sensibilities. but it's my responsibility to rise above that, to fight through it, to be better than that. jay deserves every bit of blowback he reaps from this line and i hope he's big enough to cop to it.

https://itself.blog/2017/07/02/the-christianity-of-jay-zs-typological-anti-blackness/

ah you sutures and valences, how i've missed thee

MAN, that video.

getting all captain save a hova in here

overdue but proper ^

https://itself.blog/2017/07/02/the-christianity-of-jay-zs-typological-anti-blackness/

― j., Sunday, July 2, 2017 4:29 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an ilxor is at school w one of the authors of this piece, im curious what he thinks of it

That antisemitic line is such a red herring, it's been called out already, what's the need to discuss it ad nauseam? Make Jay erase it before the album hits Spotify?

It's one dumb throwaway line on an otherwise interesting track where Jay engages with his own role as a kind of emancipatory capitalist by applying popular Piketty to his art collection:

Financial freedom my only hope
Fuck livin' rich and dyin' broke
I bought some artwork for 1 million
2 years later, that shit worth 2 million
Few years later, that shit worth 8 million
I can't wait to give this shit to my children

does "engages with his role" mean anything other than "espouses" here

You can call it that. He's arguing in favor of the choices he's made, justifying his position in class society not as a symptom of a system to be overturned but as a type of black emancipation. I don't need to agree with him to find it interesting. But no, he's not being all Kendrick-dialectic about it, not really his style.

Anyway, what we all should be raving about imo is that Jay dropped a good album wtf o_O

I think this thread so far is very indicative of the fact that most of the posters myself included haven't heard it

it's on slsk

gm i jus sold my moms jewelry business &my stepdads toyota fj cruiser n bought myself a basquiat doodle. thnk u 4 the knowledge darts hov🙏🏾

— g (@thugtear) July 5, 2017

I mean to be fair Jay-Z once dropped the line that sun revolves around the earth, didn't he?

But that was back in '99 before we had science

that's supreme mathematics study your lessons

anyone on Twitter made the "Motherfuckers say that I'm foolish, I only talk about Jews" joke yet?

not heard it and probably wont for a while, but all the guess work around The Affair i am starting to think is just the perfect PR move to generate lots of gossip and think pieces (eg the guardian's 'this is not feminism' piece). i dont really buy it.

if you stream it on Tidal, you won't have to!

lol

it's a confessional album with good rapping, solid beats, infinitely better than Magna Carta, a most pleasant summer surprise

also, since it's sonically very accessible and the lyrics are completely straightforward there is no need for explanatory thinkpieces plzzzz

otm

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/07/album-review-jay-z-444/

I finally did a 30 day Tidal trial w/an older burner hotmail acct to listen to this

I really like it! No ID did an amazing job w/the beats, really great old school soul/jazz feel.

It's not going to knock any of the classics off their perch but at least it feels like Jay's just being Jay and trying to make an album that says something and holds together without trying to be relevant or following modern hip hop.

def some o_O lyrics but you know...it's Jay.

I listened a lot to it when it came out (downloaded it on slsk) but since I mostly listen via Spotify it's not been in my rotation much since

def a good album

lol can't believe no one has revived thits thread since July.

The buzz from being a Tidal Exclusive!

https://www.nytimes.com/video/t-magazine/100000005574909/jayz-interview.html

so this is probably his best album since black album, perhaps leaning a bit too old school to be very relevant as a 2017 release, but all the same I can't help but think that if it had been available on all streaming services it would have been on a lot of EOY lists

really love No ID's work, it's very interesting how he managed to take the hyper edited digital chopping feel of some electronic and dance music w/jazz and soul samples

but yeah I think it holds up, I just got back on Tidal with this Best Buy deal where you could get 6 months free w/CD purchase and listened to it again

really love No ID's work, it's very interesting how he managed to take the hyper edited digital chopping feel of some electronic and dance music w/jazz and soul samples

otm, it really gave new life to some super obvious and well-known samples, particularly "Four Women" in "OJ" and "Love's In Need of Love Today" on "Smile"

mix is interesting though, with Jay's voice far above the beat, as if he wanted to make absolutely sure that everyone could hear him

surprised this isn't being released on streaming (like actual streaming) in anticipation of year end lists; money is a funny thing.

Yes, I'm sure Jay-Z is more concerned about whether Consequence of Sound thinks he's better than Slowdive opposed to monopolizing the entire market on the streaming service that he owns

truly selling a lot of subscriptions to a doomed service because of his exclusive stranglehold on a single six month old album from america's favorite 50 year old rapper

all the services are probably doomed

I guess except Apple and Amazon

I hope so

xp i've been assuming spotify gets bought by apple/amazon/google so count them in too.

if (more likely really when) the bubble truly bursts through the end of net neutrality or "hey anybody noticing this shit isn't making money" or whatever, i wonder what's next. perhaps you can just charge your tidal giftcard to sit at jay-z branded listening stations.

if only there was many other ways for people to hear a Jay Z album oh well

can't hear you over my state issued iphone earbuds

whiney I think everyone itt are able to hear the album

slowdive called in to talk shit about jay on ebro in the morning

fwiw i did a month of tidal to listen to 4:44 and i think i'm going to switch to it full time, it sounds so much better than spotify

I bought my copy on CD #oldtimer