“If every nigga in your clique is rich your clique is rugged, Nobody would fall cause everyone would be each others crutches”
Yup. Jay-Z is apart of my collection of articles that take a look at unheard-of and underrated Hip Hop albums. Am I crazy? Probably, but really, Reasonable Doubt is a brilliant masterpiece that does not get the recognition it deserves. In many ways, Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt is an underground classic, whilst also being the album that propelled Jay-Z to success; unlike most artists, Jay-Z did not take the major label route until later in his career, even turning down a contract from Payday records, and instead started his own label. Reasonable Doubt is the result of this. I guess in some ways it’s ironic to talk about this album now in the context of an unheard of album, but it got slept on by many people who weren’t outside the New York scene when it was released, and by a lot of heads who only know of new-school Jay-Z. In other words, this album IS successful in many ways, but is not nearly as well known as Jay’s subsequent releases or even held in the same regards to a lot of people.
What Makes This Album So Unique?
Lyrically I consider this one of Jay-Z’s finest outings. Arguably you could say that Jay’s structure in terms of rhyme-schemes is lacking in some cases, but the smooth cadence and intricate lyricism make it hard to linger on any sort of structural issues that Jay-Z has from time to time on this album.
This is a lesser-known Hip Hop classic, mainly because the group it spawned from was one that was mostly employed to create a song for Spike Lees 1995 film: “Clockers”. There are actually three Crooklyn Dodgers groups, all having created one track each; this is the second group. This incarnation consisted of: “Chubb Rock”, “O.C.” and “Jeru The Damaja”, with the beat being produced by DJ Premier.
"The real... Hip-hop!" "MCing, and DJing.. from your own mind, ya know?"
I’ve listened to hundreds of Hip-Hop albums, of course encountering my fair share of great albums and to a similar degree, some god-awful ones. There are albums that I constantly come back to, generally because their lyrics – and to a lesser sense – production are top notch. While this piece is more opinionated then my prior articles, I’m treating this as a “personal” listing and not an “end all be all” list, and using it as a chance to recommend some classic albums for people who haven’t already encountered them.
"DJ Premier", considered by Hip Hop heads everywhere as one of the "realest" artists in the culture
You’re probably viewing the aforementioned with the notion that you do in fact already know what “real hip hop” is. Yet when asked to truly define that statement, and juggle this with the abundance of hip hop tracks being pushed out in terms of mainstream and underground, your opinion becomes stagnant. Before I delve into the subject at hand, I’d like to say that I’ve listened to countless albums and have been studying the Hip Hop art for quite some time (I’m sure some of the people reading this article have as well), and only to a degree can I describe what “real” hip hop is.
For those who may be newer to Hip Hop, I’d like to go over some slang quickly. A “Purist” (in Hip Hop terms) is generally a Hip Hop head who listens to majority of the classic Hip Hop and quite a bit of modern underground, they feel strongly about what they think “opposes” the initial visions of the culture. A “Backpacker” is generally someone who enjoys participating in the “hardcore” aspects of Hip Hop, generally listening to alternative or underground Hip Hop. This term can be considered derogatory depending on who you ask, however in context of this article I’m using it to describe a subculture. Nothing less, nothing more.
