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

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