five reasons why...

I’m sure I’m not the only Jay fan that has conflicting feelings when it comes to this new American Gangster record that will officially drop next month. In fact, from the small morsels of info I have gathered from various sites, it appears as though much of the blogosphere is predicting another flop as well. Which actually may work out in Jay’s favor, that is of course, if the record is any good. Now that the burden of giving hip hop a gargantuan “classic” comeback album is lifted, the bar has been lowered and for the first time in his career Jay is looking like the underdog. But of course, calling yourself the GOAT bares alot of responsibility, so a repeat of Kingdom Come could severely tarnish his legacy. In defense of Kingdom Come, I don’t think that it was a complete failure musically. KC gave us a very personal side of Jay rarely seen and as listeners we heard a man struggle with losing a loved one, falling out with a best friend as well as a bit of bitterness towards the new generation of rappers(aka Lil' Niggas see Trouble). But despite the personal feel to the record KC still spawned two of the worst Hov songs EVER(Anything and Hollywood) With nightmares of those two shit sandwiches lingering in the memory of every hip hop fan, and the fact that this record just kinda appeared out of the blue, American Gangster maybe doomed for failure. But there are at least five reasons why we should be excited about American Gangster…

The Inspiration:
So obviously I don’t know Jay personally, if I did I probably would have been at the 40/40 last saturday when this went down. But from what I have read about this project, he appears to be genuinely inspired to create music. The glaring weakness of KC was the lack of inspiration and drive.Jay didn't attack the project with his usual vigor and KC came of as boring and lackadaisical. So if this giddiness he has when talking about the record is any indication of what the album will be like then we may have another classic on our hands.

The Concept:
Jay is making this project out to be a conceptual record. One of the attributes of Jay that I think is often overlooked is his ability to make great concept records. Everyone always mentions Nas when it comes the conceptual record and rightfully so, but Jay has some heat in his catalog as well. Dopeman, Meet the Parents, December 4th, Coming of Age, some of Jay’s best records are concept records. So considering American Gangster is being billed as a concept record, the cards are stacked in Hov's favor.

The Return:
According to iTunes, Jay and Nas reunite on American Gangster on a track called The Return. Personally, I think Nas got the best of Jay on Black Republicans and I’m looking for Jay to redeem himself on this mammoth collaboration. There are the best to ever do it, if this collab comes to fruition it will be the highlight of the album.

The Prelude:
The moment I heard "The Prelude" from KC it was evident to me that Jay was still very capable of returning to rap and being competitive. KC featured a few flashes of brilliance and his guest appearances since then have shown that he's still hungry. Despite all the other ventures, what Jay does best is rhyme. And even more specifically, what Jay rhymes best about is selling dope. American Gangster is about selling dope. You get the picture.

He's still Jay Z:
As much as I hate to use the Jordan comparison here, the truth is, it's the best analogy. Regardless of how weak KC was or how "old" Jay is, he is still the best EVER. And even when Jordan came back, regardless of how rusty, stiff and robotic he looked on the floor (it was agonizing just watching that shit) you still had to play him tight because on any given night he could put up 50 on the board. The same goes for Jay.