The Press Box - Ep. 138: "Reasonable Pod" Jay Z Day Edition With Sean Fennessey, Donnie Kwak, and Justin Charity

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Jay Z's debut album, "Reasonable Doubt," The Ringer's Jay Z aficionados reflect on Hov's impact on the modern-day rap mogul and discuss what the next step is in his career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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all right from your phone. So drop your old ticket app and experience buying and selling tickets the way it should be. To start using SeatGeek, download the free Seatgeek app or go to seatgeek.com. And welcome to a very special edition of a Ringer podcast. This is what we'll call a reasonable pod. My name is Sean Fennessey. I am the editor-in-chief of The Ringer. I'm here with two other staffers from the Ringer, Justin Charity, a staff writer, and Donnie Kwok, our East Coast Bureau chief. This is a reasonable pod because we're here to talk about reasonable doubt. Saturday marks 20 years since the release of Jay-Z's first album, which is staggering and makes me feel terribly old.

To commemorate this anniversary, myself and the two other guys on the line here wrote pieces celebrating the album, thinking about the album, breaking down the album, trying to understand why we still think about this album. So we're going to talk a little bit about those stories. We're going to talk a little bit about how we think about Jay now. We're going to talk a little bit about our favorite songs.

Let's start with the piece that you, Donnie, wrote. about the reception of the album at the time, which even though the album has become kind of legendary in a lot of people's minds, wasn't necessarily perceived that way at first, isn't that right? Totally. It was basically the purpose of my piece was to provide some context

as to how Jay was perceived by the media as a rookie. Because obviously in 2006, well, actually in 2016, he's corny again. But for the majority of the last 20 years, he's back. He's been the cool. So in 1996, he wasn't the coolest. And in fact, one of the writers I spoke to Charlie Braxton, who wrote the original review for reasonable down the source, I talk about what he talks about Charlie does about how he perceived Jay as a sidekick because he first came across Jay as the backup guy for jazz, who was Jay's mentor and had a pretty unsacquisquisement.

successful career. In fact, I was talking to Justin offline about who would be the Jay-Z in the modern day. And we couldn't really come up with one. Well, we were talking about maybe like Joey Badasses dude or something. Oh, no. I know. That's a sad thing of affairs. I didn't want to compare Joey unfavorably to jazz. So no disrespect to Joey or jazz. But the point is Jay was just a side dude in a Hawaiian shirt and not. And, you know, like he had records before reasonable doubt. And he had talent, but he wasn't thought of as cool. So, you know, fast forward to the release of his album, and he's there and swathed in a black Italian suit with a white scarf. And it's this whole mafiosa kingpin image, and there was a disconnect there.

Not only for Braxton, but I think for a lot of fans who up until that point had only known Jay as Hawaiian Sophie guy. Was Charlie not really willing to accept the transition that Jay was trying to make there? I think the problem was for Jay, or maybe not a problem actually, but what was happening in 96 was that Mafioso, Kingpin godfather shit was, you know, popping. And it was a trend. And I think for Braxton, it appeared that Jay-Z was hopping on this trend after having been a, you know, diggity siggetty original flavor type guy a backpack type guy and now all of a sudden he was you know al capone and uh i think it was a little incongruous with what he first saw of him and what

many people saw of him because again he was a background dude i mean watched the jazz videos and uh and you'll see jay there looking like you know the the dude on the side yeah he was he was kind of a goofball The Hawaiian Sophie videos especially damning. He just, that he's unrecognizable. It seems like a completely different person. What, um, what did Charlie end up writing? What, what did that review sound like? Well, the review, it's four mics, famously, not five.

And obviously, everybody knows that the source five mic scale and the five mics was coveted at the time. Um, the review, if you read it today, I mean, it's basically, it's just, you know, here's a guy with some talent, his subject matter. is tired. It's, I think he uses the phrase criminal melodrama, same old criminal melodrama. It's a review, it's like, in a nutshell, it's, this is decent. You should listen to it. He has promise, but it's not, you know, this is a must or this guy's next or anything like that. It seems like a lot of the reviews were received, were sort of pushed in that direction at that time. obviously you are an old hand at rap journalism as well. I'm glad you didn't say old head.

No, no, I would never. Old hands. You're an experienced man with great experience. But, you know, did that seem like the way that people were responding to the record at the time? Did that seem accurate? You know, you point out in your piece that Charlie was chosen in part because he was from the South and he wasn't necessarily willing to, you know, he didn't have the same East Coast bias that maybe a lot of traditional source reviewers might have had.

Right. I think, I mean, part of the thrust, I guess, of my piece is that the way you perceive Jay in 96 was based on context and there was different contexts by which people viewed him. So, you know, like for Charlie, Charlie's fresh years, it was just kind of like, okay, here's a guy that's graduated from sidekick to kingpin. And then I also talked to Jeff Mao, who worked for Eagle. trip and also wrote a profile of Jay for Vibe. And his perception was kind of like Jay is a contender for the throne. And I write about how, you know, it was written, which was Nas' highly anticipated follow-up to Elmatic. It came out the week after Reasonable Doubt. So, you know, Jeff kind of saw it as a changing of the guard. I mean, that's a little on the nose, but sort of a contender rising to

face the chant. Yeah, there's something, there's a really smart. distinction in there about Jay-Z's age when he released his first album and Nas's age by the time he released his second album and that there's a sort of like a maturity and a calm and like a he there doesn't seem to be any pop reach on reasonable doubt whereas on Illmatic you know Jeff Mao notes that the first couple of samples on the first couple of songs in the album kind of took the air out of everybody's lungs when they first heard it right totally totally and actually this is something to Justin and I were talking about offline too, because Charlie contends that Ain't No doesn't belong on reasonable doubt.

Which is a bugged out opinion about, like, that's what struck me the most about, like, the different conversations that Donnie had about, about people who, with people who reviewed the album initially. Because, you know, Ain't No feels like a huge record in retrospect. and I it's, you know, I listen to both Ain't No and Brooklyn's finest

and like either of those I guess you could say don't fit with ski beats like smooth jazz flip aesthetic and yet they seem totally they seem totally crucial to that album.

I guess most of the records unreasonable doubt seem crucial or reasonable doubt except for maybe like 22-2s which feels kind of like this holdover from like

the early who shut the F. up. No, but back to the age distinction really quick. It is an important point that Naz, when I'matic came out, was barely 20 years old, and Jay-Z, when Reasonable Doubt came out, was 26 years old. It's a world of difference. Jeff Mao even says in the article, if Jay-Z had a debut album at age 20, it would sound like the originators, which means it, you know, not very good. But that's, okay, so my question is, is that with Charlie, like, would, I, I guess, guess I'm sort of head-scratching wondering, like, would an originator's Jay-Z, you know,

feature-link debut have impressed the source? Because, like, I- Yeah, it would be like UMDs, you know, like something like that. UMCs, I'm sorry. Right. Okay. Yeah, I don't think that that would necessarily be a bad thing, but it would not have created the mythology around Jay that he easily developed because of this record, you know?

I mean, I'm sure he would enjoy it if people just forgot about every song he recorded. before reasonable doubt, right? I mean, you know, some of us... Maybe, I mean, you know, like... Can I get open as a fire song? If you listen to the songs, like, he is exhibiting a lyrical dexterity that is fresh, you know? But it's fresh for 92 or 93, you know? Right.

And it also is, it doesn't fit his persona, you know? Totally. The speed is... Even though he has the ability to be that fast and that, that dexterous doesn't mean that that's who he wants to be. He wants to be laid back in the cut, powerful, calm. Right. And that's what's funny about 22.

too, as we were talking about this before. It's like he kind of left that on reasonable doubt just as I still got this. I can do this if I want to do it. I'm not going to do it for the whole album, but here's one track for you fat beats kids, you know. Yeah, it's interesting. You also kind of wrote about Notorious BiG's debut and Illmatic's debut, and that sort of Troika, that triumvirate of East Coast debuts. And, you know, there were a lot of conversations in our Slack channel about our power rankings

of those three records. and not a single person in the Slack channel put reasonable doubt above Ilimatic or ready to die, which I thought was interesting. It's fair. I mean, like, my argument, I've listened to the album like a dozen or so times over the last three days, you know, working on this story. And my argument has been that I think it's aged more gracefully. It's aged better than those two albums.

I think just sonically, I hear a while. You know, like sonically, Charity got a troll now. 96 rap was different than 94 rap that two years. I mean, you talked about the age distinction, but when you just talk about 94 rap to 96 rap, you know, it's like there's an evolution there of the way songs are structured and how melodic. I mean, it's subjective, obviously. But, you know, there's a couple tracks on Elmatic. I mean, I'm going to get hit by a lightning strike here, but I don't really listen to.

But I don't feel like there's a wasted breath or moment on reasonable doubt, and that's my opinion. Justin, what do you think? I mean, reasonable doubt. I kind of get where Donnie's coming from. Like, reasonable doubt of those three albums is very consistently milky. That is, I will go with milky is my description of reasonable doubt. And that's great. And I feel like maybe it's also just like the literary perspective of reasonable doubt.

It is like every year I age on this earth, maybe it's just like the perspective of that album holds up better to me than. and like all of the impressive literary description on an album like I'matic, which is impressive in its own way, but isn't wise in the same way. That reasonable doubt is very wise. And Illmatic and ready to die are very rooted in their settings, in their respective settings.

It's very much, this is 94 in Queensbridge, this is 94 in beds die. And reasonable doubt feels kind of, timeless, you know, I mean, it's about mafia fantasies, really, right? That's the thing is, it is actually the most grandiose, and in some ways, I don't want to use the word dishonest, but it seems fantastical in a way that... It's totally fantastical. Yeah, it's fantasy, really. I mean, you know, we'd find out later that a lot of it was, I guess, I mean, some mythology in there, but some real life backing, I guess, and maybe that was a transition to Justin, what you wrote

about. Well, yeah, you know, Justin, I want to talk about how the tension between Nause, and Jay eventually manifested itself with Jay, you know, saying, rhyme it about your tech on the dresser. Like, those things actually came to the fore where Jay's real-life experience seemed meaningful. But what you wrote about is sort of how his real-life experiences in the way that he he interpreted those things in reasonable doubt kind of laid the blueprint for what a superstar rap record could be or should be.

You know, how did you approach your story? Well, so I went back and read basically like profiles of Jay. not just from 1996, but from 1996 through about 2000 and then a few like, you know, 2009 profiles. But it's funny that Donnie brings up the point of, that both you bring up the point of honesty and like how fantastical reasonable doubt is because I think maybe in a literal way, right? In a way, in the way of literal description of things that may or may not have happened in Jay-Z's life, we can parse that. But what strikes me of reading, like, you know, Jay's conversations with Harry Allen or Chris X or Sandra Hunter and the first the 1996 stress cover story is that he's actually pretty honest and remarkably sort of, he has a remarkable foresight, right, in talking about what his vision is. Like, 1996 and beyond, you go back and read those interviews with Jay Z and he's saying that, like, look, the reason I make music is it's a hustle, like, we're going to launch, you know, clothing, and we're going to get into sports, and we're going to make money on all of this stuff.

And this is stuff that he's saying, like, in the year, in 1999. This is stuff he's saying, like, in the year after Hard Knock Life comes out. Can I interject a hot take real quick? I think it's because Jay-Z didn't smoke weed. Seriously. What do you mean by that? Or very rarely smoked weed. He just had a clarity of thought and lucidity that his peers didn't.

Okay, hot takeover. Yeah, hot take over. No, but I think that's a real thing. Like, I've worked, I mean, you know, I used to work in public relations, and I've worked on mergers, right? And you have talking points for a thing like that, like when you announce an IPO. And Jay in those interviews over the course of four years talks with like this very consistent corporate vision of like, I'm going to accomplish these things. Like, I'm going to, basically, like, I'm going to found an empire based strictly off of music, and it's going to be this lasting black enterprise and reasonable doubt is like the blueprint for, you know, hip hop as a generator of black wealth. And there are certain ways that you can look at Jay Z's career between reasonable doubt all the way to watch the throne as, like, a cash grab and think that that that's,

a bad thing. I think Jay-Z, based on how he talks about himself, would tell you that, like, well, this is the point, right? Like, you go from selling, you go from selling heroin to selling music. And yeah, in a lot of ways, you know, he is this crass materialist who, at this point in his career in 2016, we sort of look at a skew and think, this guy is just one big marketing opportunity. But like the vision that allowed him to get to that place is something he pursued in a time where it was not super obvious that a guy like Jay-Z would be able to do any of the stuff that he does now, to launch a streaming music service or, you know, to get into sports management. You know, it's kind of crazy how prophetic 20 years ago Jay-Z was like talking with

this utmost confidence about what he was going to spend the next 20 years. trying to do on the strength of his music. I think it's a fascinating point. There's one small wrinkle to this, which is that he's also an incredible artist. So even though it seems like this cynical, professional corporate strategy, he's also a tremendous writer and a tremendous fraser. He has an ability that is incredibly unique. So the fusion of those two ideas, you know, you talk a little bit about how later artists

try to adopt some of his strategies or all of his strategies. and, you know, succeeded and failed to varying degrees. What do you see as sort of the lasting influence of not just the record, but the rhetoric and the strategy that Jay-Z created? Well, people credit and blame Jay-Z for lots of stuff, right? Like, you know, it's weird. If you talk to young rappers now, I feel like, like everyone has that sense of, like,

you get into rap music to make money. And, you know, there are plenty of rappers who, that may be all talk and it might be bravado and they really like writing in their notepads or they really like you know rapping over beats but that that whole attitude of rap is a thing that you can get into either on the side of hustling or as a form of hustling like that that's that's totally a common attitude among contemporary street rappers and i feel like has been an attitude among rappers you know ever since Jay Z. And Jay talks about this in Decoded,

which he and Dreamhampton produced together. We should say it's a memoir and a book. A memoir, right. Did you like Dakota? Because I actually read it. I skimmed it. It has gems in it. I like it.

Yeah, I like it. Don't buy it on a Kindle though. It's a unique experiment for an artist. I don't think it's 100% successful, but it's cool that he actually tried to do it. There's another conversation about the black book, which was never published. which, you know, that's maybe a longer conversation,

but that is his next memoir that featured maybe a little bit more detail about some of the more nefarious parts of his life before he was famous. Right. Well, I mean, I think, you know, it's funny because in Decoded, Jay tries to tackle that. He says, you know, he says a lot of people after me and a lot of people that were contemporaries to him got into rap with this sort of very upfront explicit interest

in I'm going to do this to get out of the hood. And he's conflicted about it, right? He says, I don't really know that this is the greatest reason to produce art. And mind you, you know, Jay is saying this. He's writing this at a point where he is successful six times over approximately. And even he's conflicted about it. And I'm conflicted about it. You know, when I think back on Jay-Z, you know, I'm conflicting.

about the fact that it's like the same guy I'm making fun of for being in super over-promoted Samsung partnership to release Magna Carta Holy Grail is also the guy who

made Watch the Phone with Kanye and that album has a lot of crass materialism that sort of shot through with the most self-awareness that Jay-Z has infused in his music since

Kingdom Come, or, you know, since the Black album. So I don't know that I'm totally uncomfortable with what success has done to Jay and what it's done to his music and how it's made him sound. I don't know, maybe it's just like impossible

to age gracefully. Maybe it's impossible to age gracefully and win gracefully. This is a perfect segue to Sean's piece. Yeah. Sean's piece, which opens with a very vivid scene of a very private... How did you get invited

to that listening party, by the way? But it was a very private listening party for Watch the Throne. I just got an email from Jay's publicist. Yeah. Sweet. It was nice. It was fun.

But yeah, in your piece, you kind of, you know, use... You know, it's Jay Z at 40 and beyond and how Watched the Throne might have been his last great album. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about what Justin

wrote in how, you know, Jay influenced 50 and Jay influenced Drake, and you can sort of see these glimmers, these reverberations of the plan that he set forth. But as recently as five years ago, he was still a very meaningful artist. And I saw him, it was, I think it was the third time I have been at a session like this with him. And I was at a session, a very, an even smaller session for American Gangster, which was very entertaining. And at the time, he was even more relaxed. Yeah, we talk about it. the American Gangster one too, because you didn't write about that. I didn't write about that. Let's dwell on this for a second. The American Gangster one was, I think,

announced even more quickly, and there was only like six people there, and it was in a studio, and he was very, very proud of the album in a way that was different from Watch the Throne. Because that album was so self-consciously, a callback to reasonable doubt, and that movie had inspired him, or at least that's what he said. He was basking. I mean, he was clowning. every person in the room he he would stand up in the middle of tracks and just like walk away like he just he was like step curry hitting the three and just turning around and running down the court before it even goes through the net so that was an interesting version of him to see the one the one the one for watch the throne was different in so far as he was very calm he was laughing a

little bit he was he was like i'm 40 and i'm still great and i was smart enough to hitch my wagon to Kanye in this very specific way. And I think what you said, Justin, is right, which is that that's a very materialistic record. But it's triumphant and self-aware in a way that makes you excited about it. You know, if you escaped, what I escaped, you'd be in Paris getting fucked up to is such a resonant line for me because it is a callback and it is about the future. You know, it's fun and smart and strange. And it doesn't alienate anybody, even though it's about wealth. But yeah, I mean, in that session, he was, he was the best version of himself that I have seen and he knew he had something. And it's kind of strange to look back on that moment now because

I would say the last five years have been not great. I'm not sure. Let's go into that not great because I think you very clinically break down, you know, the five years since Watch the Throne and his various missteps. Yeah, I don't want to make too unkind a judgment on this. But I think that there is something that happens when people have children and their lives, they changed. You know, they can't commit to their professional lives as well because their personal lives are much more important and children are much more important. And this is not a direct correlation, but it's interesting that right after Watch the Throne, Beyonce announced that she was pregnant, Blue Ivy is born at the top of 2012. Jay sort of goes into a cave somewhat. I mean,

he's still a public figure, but he's not producing a lot of art and he sort of takes the year off. 2013 rolls around and soon Magna Carta Holy Grail is announced yeah and as Justin alluded to it is sort of this corporate synergistic Samsung deal which feels less like a record

and more like you know a delivery system for an app and you know what do you guys think about that record I listen to it a lot this week and I really wanted to come in with some sort of unique take on like there's something there's some truth inside of this album he unlocked a new part of his person but like I couldn't find anything.

We, Justin and I were talking about this before that like the internet is dying for a Magna Carta is actually a classic. Hot Tick. I mean, I agree with the, tepid tick. It's weird because I think the best songs on Magna Carta are beaches better and verses. So a total, a grand whopping 120 seconds of. I agree with you. It's total.

It's two minutes total, both of those songs, which are basically snippets. Donnie, what do you think of that album? You know, I'll be honest, I don't know the album very well at all. I did go actually to see Jay-Z at Barclays where he performed the album in its entirety, and I was very depressed that, you know, there was a time where I knew literally every word Jay-Z had rapped over the course of his entire career, and I really knew nothing of that album, and it sounded shitty. Yeah, I think back on, there were two interesting things about it.

One, the ad campaign before came out was very clever, but I think he was still clown immediately. there was a lot of shots of him in the studio viving with Rick Rubin and sort of like them nodding their heads together as if they had recorded Kashmir Thoughts Part 2. And the other thing is that that album has a lot of Timbaland on it and it's five years after Timbalin mattered anymore. And I wonder if he had gone in a different direction. Say if he had spent more time with Swiss beats

or if there was more Kanye records on it or more Farrell Williams records on it. if he had gotten a little friendlier with Mike Will made it. See, that's something that we can talk about because I think that that is actually what's around the corner. I think that there's going to be a lot of like Atlanta trap wrap coming in whatever he decides to do next because he knows that that is the wave. But yeah. How has Jay-Z's 2016 been for you guys? I have shared some positive opinions about the handful of verses he's done and been laughed at by charity.

So, Justin, what do you think? 2016, JZ, it never happened. It never happened. It's not that bad, man. It never happened. Well, I think you can't talk about. It's not Magna Carta Holy Grail levels, but it is, it's sort of, instead of the way that I think Magna Carta Holy Grail really rubbed people the wrong way on a marketing front, I think the stuff that Jay has done. done this year has been less clouded by, you know, bad marketing like that. But it's just

sort of inconsequential. Like, Jay on the Push of T song, Jay on the All the Way Up remix, you know. It's funny because I actually want to double down on something you said a minute ago, though, Sean, the idea of kids and how that sort of reset your creative arc. I think that complicates that is the fact that Beyonce has made great music. It's very true. Since, you know, they had blue ivy. I was going to say the lemonade in the room here, right? Yeah, the Beyonce self-titled and then the lemonade album, you know,

I feel like Beyonce is carrying the creative weight here in a way that creates a wrinkle in your theory. But I don't know. What do you think accounts for that divergence in the, I think now in comparable relevance of the music that Beyonce is making while. And it could just be that, you know, it's because Jay is also older than Beyonce. But I'm curious what you think about that contrast. Yeah, it's like I have a note written down here that says, I enjoyed listening to Lemonade while writing this and not any Jay Z songs. And I mean, that is how I feel too. I think that you're right that. that destroys the whole concept of being less creative after you've had children or less committed because Beyonce actually in the last three to four years has been, I would argue at her best artistically, her most creative, at her most daring, at her most interesting. And I think the thing about Lemonade is I can't yet tell how much it is shattering the persona that Jay worked so hard to create. And you know, you guys talked about the way that he branded himself and messaged himself 20 years ago. and something like this, a record like this that is so raw and so specific about things he may have done wrong that would turn people against him,

seems like the exact opposite thing he'd be striving against in 1996. And the fact that we are all accepting that Jay-Z cheated on Beyonce, who is one of the most protected people, at least in the world of the internet, and, you know, can release an all the way up remix, and people are like, oh, this is pretty good, or it's not bad. I don't know, is an interesting thing to me. You know, the fact that we are already moving on from that conversation, I wonder how he will recover or if he even has to recover. What do you guys think? I mean, it is disconcerting in a way, I think, to see Jay lose control of his narrative in a way that he hasn't ever before.

So. Especially because he's, and we talked about this offline, like, Jay, I've always read Jay as a control freak. Right? He seems like a guy who, like the idea of controlling one's personal narrative is a core function of what makes Jay-Z work and what has made him succeed over everyone, including his former business partners over the past 20 years. And so, yeah, you're right. It's sort of, it is, it's very interesting to watch Jay-Z. I want to say, yeah, ever since Magna Carta, but especially through L. lemonade sort of just lose just lose control of the play yeah I wrote about during the watch of the

throne session he had a look on his face like he knew something that we didn't and I don't know if he can ever credibly have that look on his face ever again even though he has 500 million dollars and is incredibly successful and an icon and a great artist and everything else somehow there is that awkwardness where when you have a friend whose marriage is falling apart or who's who has done something terrible and you know about it, and they know that you know, it creates an incredibly awkward tension. And I suspect that that's going to be true for him for a while, right?

Like, do you think Kanye and Jay have discussed the last three months of Jay Z's life? I hope not. I hope Jay Z is not trying to get advice from Kanye West about how to regain control of his narrative. But it's interesting because Kanye, to, I guess to his credit, it's hard to say if it's to his credit, But he never lets things like this affect him. I mean, he freaks out, but he never loses his grip because he is unafraid to flail.

He is unafraid to shout, to yell, to scream about how he is the one who's in control. And that is so anathema to what Jay is about. You know, Jay doesn't come out and deny rumors. You know what I mean? Right. Anyway, it's interesting. I wonder what this means for a Jay-Z album. Do you guys want a Jay-Z album?

No. Pregnant pause right there. You know, I wouldn't reject one. I wouldn't reject one. I obviously prefer to remember him in his heyday. But, you know, I don't want to be too down on Jay-Z since he did basically raise me and a bunch of people. I think what we said, or Sean, you said earlier,

is that the backbone of this is his insane talent. He's in the 99.99.99%tile of anybody who's ever, picked up a mic to rap. We're all in agreement with that, right? Yes. For sure. I would like to, you know what, and I know it's become a sort of corny overhyped meme at this point, but I actually do want the Beyonce J album, if only because I think that, you know, I think a problem that Jay-Z has now is that his aesthetic is so, even if his influence is obvious, right? He influenced not one but two generations of rappers and of consumers of pop culture generally. But I feel like musically, you know, Jay-Z trying to compete with Drake or Jay-Z trying to ride a wave with Kendrick or with Future.

It just seems so, it always seems last gaspy to me. Like, to me, the best that Jay has really sounded in the past, you know, well, has sounded since Watch the Throne is, you know, doing stuff with GZ or doing stuff with Rick Ross, where it's like, okay, there's a bit more of a, like, Jay is the bigger guy in this combination, but he's working with someone that's closer to his age. Has that future Calid thing come out? Not yet. Not yet. So I guess that's the next. Yeah, that's the next. But that's the thing.

That's the next thing for people to ignore. Right. then that's what Sean is hinting at. But to me, it's like, I think, you know, I think in terms of working with artists who are popping in the mainstream, when Jay works with other younger rappers, I just don't think it sticks. I think as aesthetic is too far out of that sort of pop,

out of that trap and trap crossover wave. Whereas I think when Jay makes songs with Beyonce, it still works. So to me, Beyonce is his one open. portal to making songs with an artist who is still huge and popping now that he actually sounds like he has some modicum of studio chemistry with as opposed to you know awkwardly hopping on a Drake song with Kanye and everyone being like one why is Jay Z rapping like two chains to a degree that I thought this was two chains on a record but it's Jay Z and two why is

he only spitting two bars. That was very, very strange. The thing that I'm looking forward to slash dreading is in the past when Jay has gotten on younger artist tracks, he has managed to draw a lot of the gravity in his direction, or at least has attempted to. Even people who were at the time considered more eccentric like Little Wayne, I wonder if something like a person like young thug, if Jay could even exist on a track with someone like that who has pushed the direction of rap in such a way that Jay seems almost completely

obviated from the genre. Like he has no relationship to what Young Thug is doing. And I do think if he is going to make a bid to do something that is forward-looking, he's going to lean in that direction. So I kind of anticipated even though it likely would be terrible. It's like his John Travolta pull fiction moment waiting to happen. He should be so lucky. That would be.

Oh, you should be so lucky. But I mean, okay, so I think. a potential JZ Young Thug collaboration has the same problem, though, of the, you know, the forthcoming DJ Khalid future JZ collaboration, which is that it's not just that, oh, it's a new school, right? And there's new directions in hip hop. It's that the specific innovation that we're talking about when we talk about future young thug is basically like melodic innovation. And it's just not, you know, Jay Z's a lyricist. He's a rapper in, this sort of more conversational sense. And there's a lot of conversation and great lyrical prowess to Young Thugs rapping or the future's rapping. But the thing that they do that is just, I think, incompatible with Jay-Z is that they're doing things with their voice that I feel like Jay-Z would walk in a studio where young

thug is basically singing and rapping at the same time. And I don't know that Jay-Z even knows what to do with his voice in a way that sounds compatible with that style of delivery. You just painted a very sad mental picture of Jay-Z walking in the studio seeing Young Thug and feeling like I'm fucking watched. Like, Jay-Z can't hit those notes? That's basically what I'm saying. Jay-Z cannot hit those young thug notes, right?

Like, he can't hit those feet. He can't do that gravelly, you know, deep space rap singing thing. He just can't do it. He's a guy who knows how to put words together, but I've never, even, you know, Even on great JZ records, the thing that stands out is not really how he uses his voice. And that's the thing about what contemporary rappers have done to push the genre forward. It's mostly about interesting ways in which they deploy their voice. And that's what would seem strange about hearing Young Thug and J.C.

Great point. Guys, it's 2016. Jay Z doesn't go into the studio with Young Thug. Young Thug emails him a verse and he puts it on his record, if that. So we've talked about the future. Let's go back to the past for one second. Just to wrap things up. I'd like to know what your favorite reasonable doubt song is.

And be concise, but I'm curious because I think it will say a little bit about you. Me first? Yeah, Donnie, go ahead. I like politics as usual. Track number two. I love the beat. I think it's like it epitomizes the ethos and the sound of the album, lyrically impeccable

and just listenable for 20 years straight Justin, what about you? I'd say the album version of Dead Presidents. Dead Presidents too. It's just such a, I mean, I think on all fronts, right? Like the production of it is so dreamy. And it does the thing that I think of that distinguishes reasonable doubt

from Ready to Die, which is like, it's this fantastical song. that it's a fantastical sort of luxurious song in which Jay-Z has like one foot in the one side of the street and another foot and other side of the street and it's like this guy sounds like the most luxurious guy in the world but he's actually rapping about a sort of bleak outlook and he's rapping from this place of desperation still but it sounds like this movie of shit you've ever heard in your life and I don't know I love that tension of reasonable doubt of the fact that it's kind of of ambiguous whether Jay-Z is a guy on the come-up or is he a guy that has already come up? Like, that to me is the weird middle ground that album mock pies. And it's very romantic, I guess. And that's a very romantic song to me on a lot of levels. My choice would be, can I live?

Because I am an aspirational east coaster. And so my brain is fried to a friccacy. So this has been a reasonable. pod. I want to thank Donnie Kwok and Justin Charity for chatting and turn on reasonable doubt today if you can find it and don't have a title subscription because it is a great time. Thanks again, guys.