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Jay Z :: "Show Me What You Got"From Kingdom Come (Def Jam; 2006)
“The Brett Favre of rap”? Ouch. So posted one irate fan on the XXL boards in the frantic first few hours since “Show Me What You Got” tumbled triumphantly onto the internet. By now, the complaint is rote: beat = fresh, rhymes = not what they should be. Jigga’s defiantly meaningless lyrics do have a hollowness about them, not unlike GB’s QB trudging through yet another heartbreaking post-game press conference. If Jay’s the QB, and the beat is the rest of the team (follow me), then “Show Me What You Got” is Favre throwing to the Bengals’ receivers behind the Colts’ o-line. The beat just blazes, in other words, and if there’s a single producer on the planet that can produce music bombastic enough for a record called Kingdom Come, “Show Me What You Got” proves it’s the justly praised Just Blaze.
The track is fine, really; certainly better than “Change Clothes,” obviously dwarfed by a single like “Izzo,” but, really, fine. I’ll be happy when I hear it at a bar. The fun of all this postulation has little to do with “Show Me What You Got” and a lot to do with the album from which it was culled. Honestly, though: what the fuck is Kingdom Come gonna sound like? The ramifications on the pop landscape of the album’s success or failure could be positively nuclear. There’s almost nothing to extrapolate from this single, which makes it a confoundingly perfect selection. Here’s what’s left batting around in my head, though. A surprisingly astute bit of hip-hop commentary in the New York Times recently asserted that Jay-Z and Puffy, in their respective comeback bids, aspire to be each other: Jay wants nothing more than to be a multimedia impresario, a salesman, a brand name, Donald Trump, etc., and Diddy constantly asserts his status as an artist, an emcee, a kid from the streets. Jay-Z wants to sell out and Diddy wants to buy his way in. “Show Me What You Got,” in all its lush listlessness, is the first time Shawn sounded like Sean, like a CEO trying to rap.
Clayton Purdom :: 16 October 2006 |
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