Man, the message board era done turned nikkas into grumpy PhD supervisors on a peer review panel, dissecting every word (lyric) of a science paper and shyt, whatever happened to just listening to music and enjoying it.
This album is not as lyrically dense as his old work on RD and Vol 1, but the nikka has 12 albums, you tend to lose complexity after writing thousands of official verses, there is only so many ways you can say things at that point.
An album doesn’t have to be lyrically dense to be great. In fact, some of the greatest albums in hiphop aren’t, see Doggystyle and the Chronic as quintessential examples. Heck, his very own “The Blueprint” isn’t very complex lyrically either save for lyrical exercise, it’s still heralded as his second best album by most.
I was one of the few that became less of a fan of his work post black album, I don’t bump any of his post black album work apart from AG as they sounded very uninspired and boring. My issue with him was that even though I could accept that he’s become fairly basic lyrically, he lost his flow and charisma which makes up at least 60% of Jay-z’s attributes.
On this album though, he sounded very energetic, and his flow was very very good, in some parts very reminiscent of Jay-z circa Vol 2, all in all an enjoyable album. At the moment I’ll say it’s definitely one of his top 4 albums, whether its as good as the black album will depend on how the album sounds years from now, just my 2 cents.
they are legal
