JAY-Z - Anything

Asicz

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"Know matter how pretty she is you never liking my girl"

This song had good moral instruction through out.

That's why our generation don't act like dumb dikkheads.
 
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Asicz

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I think there has to be other reasonable explanation about the performance of this track on the charts.

It's not because of quality.


I think Rap game at the time had competition intensify at that moment with DMX and the South blowing up.

Not sure if my memory serves me.
 
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Asicz

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Cause it was Hard Knock Life part 2.

Everybody at the time was scared Hov was just gonna sample broadway plays and shyt from there on out
Right and the radio spins of Hard Knock Life I think we're becoming excessive at its height. Like it had a very long duration and frequency of spins on radio for that time.
 

Mike the Executioner

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This shyt and Hard Knock Life aged so damn poorly. Clearly they wanted to recapture the “magic” of Hard Knock but this just ain’t it. I can respect the content in the song because there’s some deep meaning there but Jay has a lot of “meh” tracks.

Honestly, people hate on “Sunshine” mostly because of that video but that shyt aged better than this and is a decent track for its era.

I like the hook to "Sunshine" but it sounds out of place with the rest of the song. I can't hear it without wanting to listen to "Cha Cha Cha" by MC Lyte instead. :heh:
 

Newark88

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Can we say probably the most underrated Jay single ever? One of my favorite Jay songs of all time where I still feel that it doesn’t get its just due. Also if I’m not mistaken, this along with Do It Again we’re out practically the same time. Cus if my memory serves correct, around December 99 both videos were out along with being on Hot 97 rotation.
 

Piffery

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Too much HKL trashing in this thread. One of my favorite memories playing a Jay song, is when I played Anything on a balcony on a starry night during college. But HKL is still one of the ultimate rap sing along songs, and it's aged very well/still gets fans to this day.

It's just more polished than Anything and is written perfectly, I can't rank Anything above it with this third verse.

"I don't know how to sleep,
I gotta eat, stay on my toes
Got a lotta beef, so logically, I prey on my foes
Hustlin' is still inside of me,
and as far as progress
You'd be hard-pressed
to find another rapper hot as me
I gave you prophecy on my first joint,
and y'all lamed out
Didn't really appreciate it 'til the second one came out
So I stretched the game out,
etched your name out
Put Jigga on top
and dropped albums non-stop for ya, nikka!"


 

Aje

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Does anyone remember, during this time, there was at least one other "show tunes / broadway sample" hip-hop track that was out. I think it might've been Busta or someone else trying to catch the "HKL / Anything" wave?
 

Aje

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Does anyone remember, during this time, there was at least one other "show tunes / broadway sample" hip-hop track that was out. I think it might've been Busta or someone else trying to catch the "HKL / Anything" wave?
45 King, who also did "HKL" produced this classic, too.
 
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