Beyoncé’s candor may have been the nudge, but to label 4:44 a response or contextualize it within the framework of various confessionals and subliminals is reductive.
The night the album dropped Jay offered brief commentary for each track, describing “4:44” as the project’s “crux.” And it is-but not in terms of the album being a “response” (such silly phrasing, as if Jay and Bey are hearing these tracks addressing their marriage at the same time we are, subbing each other from different wings of the mansion). As their latest albums prove though, the Carter-Knowles union is even realer than we might’ve wanted from two of our biggest celebrity superheroes. What exactly does * almost* going Eric Benet entail? When did the relationship issues begin and when were they resolved? The summer after the elevator, Jay and Beyoncé concluded each show on their first joint tour with home videos prefaced by the message "This Is Real Life," a nod to cynics who thought their relationship couldn’t possibly be genuine. The emotions are so raw that the scenes aren’t clearly defined, they’re intense impressions. Even with “Kill Jay Z” as a mood-setter, no one who’s been listening to Jigga since Iceberg Slim was the coldest cat could’ve predicted nor prepared themselves for this: a self-lacerating admission of guilt and remorse that makes “Song Cry” seem anemic. 4:44-and “4:44”-is Jay-Z living in the urgent here and now, with a lot of weight to heave off of his chest and a self-imposed constraint of 10 songs to do so-there’s no time to rehash, this is about revelation. It’s also the first album since his MJ-Wizards era began that he doesn’t waste time self-mythologizing over the gangster-to-GOAT success story we’ve heard before.
Jay z 444 youtube how to#
(But it’s not the first Jay-Z album to come packaged with a telecommunications company jig the man knows how to finesse a bag.) The first official, solo Jay-Z bars since his wife dominated pop culture with a visual album about overcoming infidelity and betrayal at the hands of someone she called the Big Homie. The first time Jay’s admitted to having a therapist. The first Jay-Z album without bids for radio or pandering to current sonic trends. The first time Jay has locked in with just one producer-the exacting veteran No I.D.-for an entire project. “We know the pain is real, but you can’t heal what you never reveal,” he raps on the opener, and then: “You know you owe the truth to all the youth that fell in love with Jay-Z.” That first song’s title? “Kill Jay Z.” So begins the exorcism. Who could’ve known? Not us, as Jay is aware.
Jay z 444 youtube full#
To anyone paying this album full attention, though, it’s clear romantic fidelity, betrayal, and shame are just three out of a whole gaggle of demons tormenting the outwardly affable and, until now, seemingly unbothered, Jay-Z. The armchair psychiatrists on Twitter and elsewhere would pin his tossing and turning on the infamous elevator incident that shattered his family’s perfect veneer three years ago.
The way some of the album-his thirteenth-and its weightier moments paint the picture, one imagines Jay hadn’t been sleeping well for quite some time. Just the time on the clock, much like Rosebud was just a sled. 4:44 isn’t a numerically-coded ode to his BFF Obama, a reference to his favorite number, a numerology message, nor a Bible verse. That’s the answer to the grand puzzle the internet spent a month trying to decode, thanks to some crafty, minimalist marketing.
0 kommentar(er)
