Jay-Z is a rapper that I sometimes love, and sometimes can't stand. He has always been very polarizing like this for me. For example, his 2001 album, Blueprint was amazing to me. He sounded so great on every single track. I believe this for a lot of his other early albums. On the other hand, for the past few years, Jay-Z has done very little to impress me. This is understandable because of all the other things going on in his luxurious life, but I still have not been feeling a lot of it. Will this new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, change things? With this album being pretty long, I will do another review that is not track-by-track.
The first few tracks on this album actually had me really impressed. From the moment the first song, Holy Grail starts, I was sucked into it. Justin Timberlake absolutely killed it on this hook. He sounds passionate and rides the beat flawlessly. Jay-Z doesn't deliver anything amazing on the mic, but still sounds good over this dope, high-class, smooth beat. The lavishness continues on Picasso Baby. This was another awesome beat, but Jay didn't too much for me. None of his lyrics were really too great either. The beat is enough to carry this track. This same thing happens on the next one, Tom Ford. While the instrumental sounds a bit like a Yeezus throwaway, it still hits hard. Jay's flow was a little off on this song, though. At some points it just sounded bad. Still a nice track because of the head-bopping beat, once again. Oceans was a great song. Frank Ocean almost never sounds bad singing a hook, and he brings it here. He sounds very good on this track. This track was beautiful all the way through. Jay also finally gave me some decent lyricism on this one.
Skipping around a little, I really enjoyed the track Somewhereinamerica. This beat was insanely catchy, with the horns and piano sounding awesome. This instrumental was just dope and I loved it. Jay-Z also didn't really bother me either, with some pretty good lines. This track was one of the very few I had absolutely had no complaints about. Another very solid track was Crown. This beat was slow and very layered, sounding really cool. Jay brought some good lyricism here too. Travis Scott sounds awesome on the hook as well. This track was one of the experimental areas on the album that really works. Jay-Z's best rapping moment on MCHG probably came on the track BBC. Rapping along with Nas, Jay sounded awesome on this song, speeding up the flow a little and sounding very smooth over a pretty weird, but cool beat. Nas sounded pretty good too on this song, but I think Jay had the better verse. Overall, a very cool song.
Unfortunately, that is pretty much it for songs I like on MCHG. While I liked the beat on F.U.T.W, the track as a whole was just forgettable with Jay-Z delivering some more boring raps about how rich he is. This is just the theme with far too many tracks on this album, such as Versus, La Familia, Part II (On the Run), and Nickels & Dimes. I was not really digging any of those tracks very much. They all just sounded similar: very lavish and high-class production, with Jay bringing some boring lyrics with a flow that just isn't that good. He did have some topical tracks, such as Heaven (religion) and Jay Z Blue (his daughter) but these just came off equally as boring to me. I just was not feeling Jay Z as a rapper on this album. He didn't really impress me at all here, outside of a couple spots here and there.
MAGNA CARTA HOLY GRAIL WRAP UP
+almost every track featured some sick production
+good guest spots, especially singing (JT, Frank, Beyonce)
+Jay brought a few nice lines and sounded really good on BBC
-too many tracks that were the same topics
-very boring lyrics, for the most part
-Jay still has a pretty rough flow and doesn't really change it up here with delivery
Best: Somewhereinamerica, Oceans, Crown
Worst: La Familia
Jay-Z- Magna Carta Holy Grail
6.8/10
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