Jay-Z
Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam 558902-2)

As with lots of disaffected white boys, there was a time in the very late 80s and very early 90s when I was quite heavily into hip-hop, going from Ice-T to N.W.A., then Public Enemy, and on to a few others. Eventually, the gangsta rap explosion coupled with my advancing age and subsequent "maturation" alienated me from the hip-hop genre entirely.

It seems to me that music itself runs in approximately ten-year cycles, and as such, so can musical taste. In other words, what once was, comes again, and in the late 90s I started to take more notice of the current crop of hip-hop artists.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, received the prestigious MTV "beat it into the ground" treatment with the unavoidable "Hard Knock Life," built arund a piano line and samples from Annie. The seeming incongruity somehow works, giving the song an irresistible hook that withstands many repeated listens. That kind of durability was essential for late-90s MTV slaves such as myself, as it helped maintain the patience needed to not chuck a cinderblock through the screen any time a lame video was played for the twentieth time in as many minutes, or when Carson Daly would narrowly avoid staining his Tommy Jeans with a hot load because whatever current "hot" artist was in the studio.

As for the Hard Knock Life album, virtually every song "features" someone, from obscure acts like Memphis Bleek (who is on three tracks), Big Jaz, and Da Ranjahz, to better-known artists such as Foxy Brown, DMX, Too Short, and Jermaine Dupri. The better tracks on the disc are the title track, "Nigga What, Nigga Who" (featuring Big Jaz), "Money, Cash, Hoes" (featuring DMX), "A Week Ago" (featuring Too Short) and "Money Ain't A Thang" (featuring Jermaine Dupri).

Out of those, I'd go with "A Week Ago" being the best, but they're all solid. "If I Should Die" and "Ride Or Die" are pretty boring, and "If I Should Die" probably sets some sort of record for the use of the word "nigga," as it appears in nearly every line of the song. The rest of the disc is fair to good, but no real standouts.

It's a solid disc, and while it does plug the gangsta life a bit, it's not nearly as hardcore and confrontational as the style was just a few years ago. It's also a damn nice sounding disc, with production of the highest caliber, and performed with obvious talent. "Hard Knock Life" is the most accessible of the tracks, an easy choice for a single, and possibly a deliberate effort on Jay-Z's part to be radio- and MTV-friendly.

I would give Jay-Z even more credibility if he had opted to "feature" Aileen Quinn on this track, and/or heavily sampled her remarkably bad Bobby's Girl solo album, released at the height of Anniemania. (Was there such a thing? Extra points to you if you remember the "Real People" segment about the hype surrounding the auditions for the part of Annie in the movie. Points deducted from me for knowing so much about Annie offhand.)

At this time of my life, any pretense I had of being a street thug (a thin conceit to begin with) is long gone, so actually purchasing a hip-hop disc is increasingly unlikely. If I found this album used for $4.99, I might be able to justify it, but otherwise, not. But I couldn't justify buying that collection of 1920s porn off of eBay either, and I did that, now didn't I?

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Mario Speedwagon