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I wish I could rep you for this. Seriously on the ball post. Yes, Jay has released artistically better/more perfect albums (Reasonable Doubt, American Gangster), and more 'important' ones, rap genealogy wise (The Blueprint), but The Black Album will always have a special place in my heart because it totally embodies Jay-Z the ICON. No, I don't flat out love every track, but hen you hear like December 4th or 99 Problems, any complaints about incoherency, stealing other peoples rhymes, not being a absolutely KNOCKOUT technical rapper a lot of the time, whatever, simply don't matter, because he's just the king. He is hip-hop charisma and swagger just embodied, and you can't argue that he doesn't deserve it. And this is an album made up of a shockingly diverse palette of rap production and style circa 2004, veering wildly around, while still hitting that feeling of 'I Am The Game' on pretty much the vast majority of those tracks. All on what, as you said, is a remarkably tight release for a major label hip-hop album. Masterful. I'm going to go listen to it now.
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The toothaches got worse, she dreamed of disembodied voices from whose malignance there was no appeal, the soft dusk of mirrors out of which something was about to walk, and empty rooms that waited for her. Your gynaecologist has no test for what she was pregnant with.
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