Anything else that Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter does from now on is just icing on the cake. In the past five years, the 30-year-old has built a legacy of music that firmly establishes him in the hip-hop hall of fame. Yeah, his flow and voice will never be as smooth as Notorious B.I.G.'s; he will never have as much charisma as Tupac, or be considered as sexy as L.L. Cool J. But when Jigga retires, even his detractors will likely admit that, line for line, there are few that could touch the lyrical prowess of the Bed-Stuy ambassador. At the rate he's going — dropping two consecutive #1 albums less than 365 days apart (1999's Vol. 3 ... Life & Times of S. Carter and 2000's The Dynasty: Roc La Familia 2000) — it's probably going to be a while before we can even think about looking back on his career. Jay will keep his torrid pace of an album a year when he drops his sixth LP, The Blueprint, on September 11. As he told Rahman Dukes, he'll take fans' criticisms with a grain of salt, but if any of his peers have something bad to say, they better make it count ... and be prepared for stinging retaliation. ***MTV: This is your sixth album in as many years. Did you plan it that way, or did you just catch a wave? Jay-Z: Nah. My plan was just to do one album in the beginning. But I really started getting into a groove as far as recording. The more I do, the more I just want to do better albums. That's what I do. Every year since 1996, I've dropped an album. ... It would be fast for a lot of artists, but it's really on schedule for me. MTV: Do you feel this is your best album yet? Jay-Z: It's definitely up there, but I feel that all the time, so it ain't for me to say. It's for the people to say. MTV: At this time last year, you were working on the Dynasty album. You seemed to be going through a lot, and it showed in the emotional songs on the album. This time around, it sounds like you're going through even more personal things. How do you stay focused? Jay-Z: I'm a person that believes everything that happens to you in life shapes you as a person. Every struggle, every challenge, everything that is placed in front of you is to see how ... [much] stronger a person you're gonna become. Any problem that you've had in your life, you look back and thought [at the time], "I'm never ever gonna get over this. This is the worst thing ever. How am I gonna go on from here?" You look back and ... they're all behind you. [RealVideo]
H.O.V.A. for president, keeping your concepts tight and Jay's blueprint for success ... NEXT >>
|
