One of the most interesting contrasts between Jay-Z and Dr. Dre (arguably the most important figures in hip-hop of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively) is that Dre releases instrumental versions of his albums while Jay-Z releases a cappella versions of his albums. This has helped make Jay-Z one of the most sampled rappers in the mash up community. On my iPod, I have Danger Mouse's mash up of The Beatles with Jay-Z's Black Album, (the resulting Gray Album might be the most famous mash up so far) Cookin' Soul's mash up of J-Hova with Oasis, and DJ Doc Rok's mash-up of Jay's American Gangster album with Led Zeppelin, and when faced with space limitations, I've chosen the mash ups over the original Jay-Z albums. Jay-Z has even released an official mash up album (unfortunately, he chose Linkin Park to mix his songs with, and after having to listen to the mash up of "Encore" with "Numb" before every NCSU basketball game a few seasons ago, I have no interest in ever hearing that particular blend again.
Another Jigga dialectic- during the prominent Jay-Z/Nas beef, I generally broke the rivalry down like this: Jay-Z had the charisma and Nas had the better flow and lyrics (even if, as rumor sometimes has it, MF Grimm actually ghostwrote parts of Illmatic). But just as Nas' blistering set at this year's Rock The Bells forced me to re-evaluate his charisma, one track on last year's American Gangster led me to hold Jay-Z's writing and performing in a higher light (this is not to say that I ever thought Jay-Z wasn't talented. I just always felt that his best rhymes couldn't compare to the best efforts of a number of other MCs). The song was "No Hook" and hearing Jay-Z break out a more complicated rhyming scheme (look! internal rhyme) with a more measured cadence left me more impressed by a Jay-Z track than anything this side of Eminem's verses on "Renegade".
While the official version is the clear stand-out on an otherwise pretty good album, it's the mash up of the song with Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine", from the Zeppelin III album that I've been listening to at least weekly since I got the American Zeppelin album. It's not the first time that Led Zeppelin has been sampled- John Bonham's drums on IV's "When The Levee Breaks" is an old favorite for samplers, perhaps most notably by Rick Rubin on the Beastie Boys track "Rhymin' and Stealin'". But here the only sample is a Jimmy Page riff- no other beat at all, and the result is captivating. While the original version features subtle background music and a relatively sparse beat, stripping the song down even more forces even more attention onto Jay-Z's lyrics and flow.
I find it interesting, given the breadth of famous producers that Jay-Z has worked with (9th Wonder, Kanye West, Rick Rubi, The Neptunes, Timabaland, Eminem and Diddy, who produced "No Hook", just to name a few) that I keep turning away from the album versions and to the mash up versions, in a way that I don't with other rappers I have mash ups of (for example, as good as 9th Wonder's remix of Nas' God's Son album is, I still listen to the originals). I don't know exactly what it is about Jay's voice or flow, but it always seems to sound better over, say, a lick from "Glass Onion" or "Wonderwall". It might be the little spaces that Jay-Z often leaves between words (I refer you back to "Renegade", Jay-Z's duet with Eminem on the Blueprint album, and the difference between Jay-Z's more paced flow with Eminem's more rapid fire delivery).
Of course, the whole song could rearouse the whole debate about the artistic and legal merits of sampling itself. In general, I don't have a philisophical problem with sampling. I don't see it as fundamentally different from the way that Woody Guthrie borrowed melodies (for example, the melody of "This Land is Your Land" is based on an old gospel song called "Oh My Loving Brother". I agree that sampling can be an easy crutch for a lazy artist to simply graft an already beloved hook onto their own song (I'm looking at you Puffy), but it would be silly to argue that just because sampling can be abused by the uninspired it shouldn't be accepted. The legal argument is more complex, and I'm sympathetic to the notion that if one's actual recording is used in another song, one deserves compensation of some sort, but beyond that the whole argument wanders into a series of sticky debates that I'm not particularly interested in. I will point out that, for all the people who see this as one of hip hop's cardinal sins, the practice goes back at least a decade before Kool Herc. The first sample I can think of is actually on a Beatles song (I wouldn't be surprised if the practice predates the Beatles, but I find the notion that this is just another item on the long list of Fab Four innovations especially satisfying- call me a romantic of some sort). Remember the bit in "Yellow Submarine" after Ringo sings "andthe band begins to play"? That's a sample. It's not certain what engineer Geoff Emerick put there, but it's thought to be a distorted version of a song called "Le Reve Passe". (At least, that's what wikipedia thinks. I know a lot of Beatles lore, but my grasp of early 20th century marching band composition lore is a touch shakier.) Throw in John Lennon's other experiments with what might be called "found music" ("Revolution 9" and "Radio Play" from the Life With the Lions experimental album come to mind immediately), and the notion that sampling was just another form of hustling that hip hop unleashed upon an unsuspecting world of pop music seems ridiculous. That doesn't prove anything, of course, but it remains interesting. My friend Keith once observed that if Lennon hadn't been killed when he was, he would almost certainly have released a rap album. I immediately agreed, as potentially horrifying as that notion is. Now that I think about it in this light, I'm more certain than ever.
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