Photo Credit: Madam Toussaint

It’s like when I was a kid, I once bought 50 caramels from the store and tried to eat all of them at once.

At first it seemed like a dream come true, but when I got halfway through they started to taste like peanut butter and I didn’t want to see another caramel for a week.

For some reason that’s what Jay has always been like for me, tasty in small doses but a whole album tastes like peanut butter.

Jay-Z has always tried to play both sides of the “conscious” fence.

He tells us his rhymes about the drug game are only cautionary tales that he spits so his young fans “won’t have to go through that”, yet he constantly leans on that drug game experience as basis for his credibility, as proof he is more “real” than Nas and other foes, and so on.

You can’t have it both ways, Jigga, either you’re proud of selling rocks or you’re not…

It’s like he knows he will never get the adulation Pac and Biggie earned by passing away, so he’s getting the next best thing by telling us he too must disappear now, and then writing a eulogy for himself. ~Jay Smooth’s review of Jay-Z’s Black Album, 2003

First let me explain the pic above. I wasn’t able to simpsonize Jay from scratch and I had to rework somebody’s pre-simpsonized pic, so there.

Always wondered what Jay Smooth thought about the other Jays. I wonder what he thinks about the Conan vs. Jay Leno thing….

Anyway, this review is actually kinder to Jay-Z than the length of this quote in this post would allow. You can read “ALBUM REVIEW: Jay-Z’s Black Album” in it’s entirety from animal lover and super blogger supreme Jay Smooth’s blog hiphopmusic.com.

One of the best parts to me of Jay’s blog is reading the comments section so I encourage you to check out it out.

You can check him out at his other website illdoctrine.com.

If you like him in print and in video you’ll love him in audio- on the radio that is on Underground Railroad with Jay Smooth, the longest running Hip-Hop radio show.

The show delivers the finest in Hip-Hop music and culture on WBAI 99.5 FM if you live in the tri-state area or Live streaming on the net at stream.wbai.org from 12-2 AM EST on Saturday nights.

WBAI is a Non-commercial, listener sponsored radio station. Kind of like PBS or Channel Thirteen occasionally they ask for donations.

The station is currently in fund raising mode. If you like what they do, if you like this mix, if you want to support the Underground Railroad with Jay Smooth donate to them HERE

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