Spinning their wheels, everyone here sounds good. It’s both a quality warm-up album and a masterpiece of coasting on a built fledging empire, every bit as lazy a posse album you’d expect and yet operating from such a high plane that it’s glorious nonetheless. Likewise, no one wants to hear Snoop Dogg condescend with a chant of “Get Your Mind Right Mami” on the even grosser pimping anthem of the same name. “Parking Lot Pimpin’” is, make no mistake, a significant downgrade from “Big Pimpin’,” despite the anonymous chorus girls’ disturbingly singable hook and menacing sparseness of the beat. Jay-Z The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam 2000Īt its most substantive, The Dynasty set aside an appropriately lush emo production for each parent (“Soon You’ll Understand” for Ma, “Where Have You Been” for Pa), but this was deliciously inessential meat-and-potatoes swagger from a bunch of rich upstarts in their prime. The needlepoint detail of the interwoven samples (are those two notes an ominous marimba?) was an early glimpse at the man’s sheer sonic voraciousness. And Kanye West’s first major breakthrough was getting a beat onto “This Can’t Be Life,” a gorgeous Scarface weeper that set the stage for his bluesy 2002 comeback The Fix. “This is food for thought, you do the dishes” was the literal mic drop moment of “Intro,” one of several moments that announced the sweeping cinematic arrival of Just Blaze. This is where the Timbaland and Neptunes age met luxurious cruise control, where the Tunnel banger “Change the Game” made a single out of one palm-muted guitar chord, a sinister sub-bass line, pitched whistle effects and a march of a beat that paused for just one chorus. The Dynasty: Roc La Familia made the most of the sweeping cinema and off-the-wall sound effects of millennial rap production. It was a great listen in its own right, though this had a lot more to do with the sound and attitude rather than the content. ’s soulful, world-conquering The Blueprint. He made the most of it, sneering “I’m not the snitch, I don’t go to the cops to get rich,” and most hilariously, bragging he’s got so much product in his car that “if the cops pulled us over, the dog’d get sick” on “Streets Is Talking.” But for the most part, The Dynasty was the first time the newly minted superstar got to ride his own coattails, or as he put it, “I paid my dues, I made the news.” His fifth album came right between his two masterpieces, 1999’s tuneful, gangstapolitan Vol.
JAY Z THE DYNASTY MP3 CRACK
Until 2007’s openly retrospective American Gangster, intended posse album The Dynasty: Roc La Familia was the last time on record that Jay-Z could credibly pretend he still had a foot in the crack game.