If you want a review of the JAY-Z concert at this point then you are living under a R.O.C. Even LIL’ KIM’s azz in a prison jumpsuit has read the reviews already. JAY-Z is a showman if there was ever one in rap music. He replaces the raw energy that most of the entertainers in the genre have with a self assured swagger. JAY-Z doesn’t have to remember the words to his songs, because he knows that you do. He knows that you go home and you study his rhymes for the metaphors and similes and the occasional onomatopoeia. JAY-Z knew that he had you before you came in the door.
I scanned the crowd with a bemusement that I don’t usually bring to rap concerts. JAY-Z is a phenomena unlike anything inside of the music industry. Maybe SPRINGSTEEN or DYLAN have a fan base that idol worship them as philosophical gurus as much as the crowd in Radio City wanted to praise JIGGER. Incidentally, there was a small pocket of JAZ-O holdouts that chanted his name vociferously enough to get a chuckle out of JAY-Z. I can only assume that JAZ-O bought those seats for his fans. He should have saved his money. The audience that came this evening was here to fellate JAY. If he would only remove his big lips from his jock for a minute.
I can admit to being jealous of the ‘Reasonable Doubt’ JAY-Z persona because I remember his style before that. It was a popular theme for mid-nineties rappers to say that they left the streets for the sound studios. The truth is that there was never anyone in the streets who was legendary at two games. Even the great, PEE WEE KIRKLAND will admit that he wasn’t that good of a basketball player. The discipline of dealing drugs doesn’t transfer to counting rhyme bars, especially when you don’t even write them down. JAY-Z is undoubtedly an idiot savant who used the easy speaking flow created by RAKIM to craft tales of a marvelous and dangerous world that some people would never dream of visiting. JAY-Z became suburbia’s ghetto safari guide. He had all the cockiness of that Australian crocodile hunter. He spoke slow enough to let them know that danger lurked around every corner. It was each man for his own inside the concrete jungles. The concert at Radio City was a celebration of that principle. JAY-Z is still that paradigm.
As the leader of the free world JAY-Z could have been so much more than a stiff well-dressed manequin reciting verses. He could have brought the world together and created a solidarity inside the rap music game that would have truly made him a God. JAY-Z is a billionaire who owns the Nets basketball team, and Roc-A-Fella brand clothing and all the et ceteras. Why couldn’t he show his benevolence by bringing former friend and mentor JAZ-O to the stage. This would be even more momentous than the autumn coincert that brought him and NAS together. Speaking of NAS, wasn’t he available to put on a tux and voice the hook to ‘Dead Presidents’? How about letting another Bed Stuy legend shine by conscripting BIG DADDY KANE to do B.I.G.’s verses on ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’? For the JAY-Z stans in the stands none of this mattered, but to assume the role of the greatest of all time you have to contain the courage to hold humility. Only a coward associates humility with being humiliated.
And what did I expect from JAY-Z anyhoo? Even though he was never a drug pusher he does contain the sense of community that all drug dealers must have. It’s the attitude that everyone around him is here to serve him and if someone can’t make themself a servant then they must be an enemy. I didn’t want to believe that he was greedy and lacked valor, I wanted him to be that generous, courageous, intelligent leader that I assume all billionaires are. I wanted to be wrong about my negative perception of JAY-Z. In the end all I realized is that no matter how I feel I can’t knock the hustle.
