I think it was very important to him to add another notch on his bedpost to show different sides of his music." He wanted to show himself in a serious light, in a respectable light.
In Fall ’01, before anyone witnessed Jigga rock with The Roots, Questlove was teasing out thoughts to MTV News, "People have this preconceived image of Jay-Z: 'What was it like working with a jiggy rapper?' Usually, I work with some artist and they're like, 'Yo, it has to be the way it is on the album.' He wanted to experiment. That line from the God MC always sounded like some fly-if-you-buy bullshit to me.īut with Jay as an arbiter of cool, with a BIG strain of rap nerd beneath, while trying to straddle an invisible fence between commoners and Common listeners who thought they were special on Unplugged, Hov found proper assistance to finesse that line of bullshit into sounding something like common sense. “ Truthfully,” I never believed Jay-Z would, then or now, “ rather be Talib Kweli.” “ Is it too early to mourn, is it too late to ride?” The rap game’s then-leader who’d go on to father three with the lead singer from Destiny’s Child knows a thing or two about fate or time.
Has it really been twenty damn years since this moment?Īn event reinforcing (pun intended) the takeover of The Blueprint (2001), an NYC album that went on to accidentally define the entire world for a period of time.ĭropping during the height of Jay-Z’s “artistic” prime, on the same day the Twin Towers did, ushering in decades of wartime. For the rarely tread waters of rap concert albums, Jay-Z’s “Unplugged” is as good as they get.For those getting grown around the time, this live performance first aired on a cable channel still then featuring a somewhat reasonable amount of music in its television, this is a time-capsule catapulting you back into that Fall ‘01 vortex. After hearing his live performance and a little taste of what’s to come, the fans should undoubtedly stay hungry. One has to suspect it’s no coincidence this album was released the same week as Nas’ “Stillmatic” was, as Jigga gets the entire audience to scream that he’s so “LAAAAAAAAAAME!” during his performance of “Takeover.” Despite the rumors though, his “Super Ugly” freestyle is not included on this album as a bonus song although there IS one after the end of last track, in which he mentiones “Blueprint 2” will be coming out next November. Jay-Z talks to the audience, cracks jokes, and gets them to participate in providing the hooks and famous lines from his most popular songs. This live recording manages to hit almost all the right notes. It’s too bad this live version of the song wasn’t on “Blueprint” instead! A few Jay-Z songs that weren’t among his best work are completely invigorated by this live set, including “Can I Get A.” and the formerly insipid “Jigga That Nigga” track. Combining the two together leads to some really spectacular show-stopping performances, such as Roots posse member Jaguar BELTING out the heartfelt chorus of “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love).” When she extends it into a freestyle of her own Jigga likes it so much he declares, “I like that, let’s do it again!” and she keeps RIGHT on singing. Anybody who has seen or heard one of their shows knows that they reinterpolate the music from legendary hip-hop tracks in their performance. Hip-Hop’s finest musicians have already been doing this for a while now. The fact that Jay-Z has always relied on beats that have some jazzy swing to them lends itself to the ability of The Roots to recreate the tracks live. The only song included from “Dynasty” is the hit single “I Just Wanna Love U” with Pharell from The Neptunes showing up to provide his Mayfield-esque vocals and hook. The three singles from “Volume 2” are also included, and from “Volume 3” a new interpretation of “Big Pimpin'” is offered with the melody provided by keyboards instead of winds. Blige showing up to reprise her original vocals. To his credit though, two songs from his debut album “Reasonable Doubt” are included: a short performance of the song “Ain’t No (Nigga)” sans Foxy Brown, and “Can’t Knock the Hustle” WITH Mary J. Throughout his engaging performance, Jay-Z relies heavily on songs from his recently released “Blueprint” album – six to be exact.
#Jay z unplugged zip series
By combining the alreadyunplugged live sound of hip-hop band The Roots with the vocals of Jay-Z, MTV gives the whole series a breath of fresh air and showcases a group of rap’s finest on one stage.
Since it’s inception, MTV’s Unplugged has included hip-hop artists from A Tribe Called Quest to LL Cool J. If you thought only Nirvana and Pearl Jam ‘unplugged’ their instruments for MTV, here’s a wake-up call.
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