With the upcoming release of “Watch The Throne” on its way, I feel now is a perfect time to put this out there: Kanye’s music is better than Jay-Z.
I’ll begin this the right way by saying I am a Jigga fan. I’ve purchased Reasonable Doubt about 4 times already [in my lifetime], and I’m probably gonna need to cop it again around my 30th birthday just cause. Hov is in my personal Top 5 Dead or Alive and the connection I have with his music hits very close to home. As a kid growing up in the ghetto, crack, murder, guns, poverty, and chaos surrounded me. My older brother was a dope boy in the late 80’s and I was fascinated with his lifestyle. The money, jewelry, sneakers, girls, cars… it all had an effect on the way I perceived things, that was until he got locked up.
On one visit to see him in ‘96, he’d asked me if I had listened to Jay-Z.
Around this time, I was heavily engulfed with BONE, Pac, Biggie, and Nas.
He was like, “You need to sit down and listen to Reasonable Doubt”.
So I got the tape, popped it in my walkman, and vibed out… The first time I heard “Can I Live”, I swear I thought my brother had wrote it, because most of those bars were things my brother had said to me when he was in the dope game.
It was a very personable experience, and to be honest, I didn’t feel the way I felt then about music until the first time I heard “Through The Wire”
Fast forward to 2004: I’m a 21-year-old Lance Corporal in the United Stated Marine Corps stationed in Pyongtaek, South Korea and my only objective on February 10th was to buy “The College Dropout” and Usher’s “Confessions”. I was literally on the other side of the world and felt like I was chopping it up with my boys back at home. I would play “Last Call” on repeat over and over just to listen to Ye’s story. Not only was the Bette Midler sample hypnotizing, but I just felt like his struggle to get on reached me on so many levels.
So now that we’ve established the first encounters from each via the first albums, we jump to now.
Been 7 years since The College Dropout and 15 years since Reasonable Doubt and I have come to the conclusion that Kanye makes better music than Jay. 2001 saw The Blueprint, where which Kanye along with Just Blaze led the production. Sonically, Jay owes Kanye for giving him the sound that transcended Jigga to Hova. Even on Dynasty Roc La Familia, and any other joint we got to see “FaceMob” get on a Yeezy track, it was monumental.
Kanye’s production is flat-out amazing. Jay-Z can make great songs, yes, but Kanye makes great music.
Because Jay is such a diverse, animated, intelligent, and gifted artist, he has to work with other’s that are equally yoked in order for his music to breathe. Not every rapper can lyrically express themselves like Jay-Z, nor have the business savvy and charisma that he possesses. Jay’s trendsetting in culture and music is the soundtrack for modern day Black America, i.e.: “You did it, I done it before. You get it? I had it, got mad at it, I don’t want it no more…”
Within the hip-hop community, most artist strive to have a career as illustrious as Hovi’s, and pattern a lot of their marketing and branding from him and Roc-A-Fella Records. And amongst those artists, the only one that seems to be equal or greater is: Kanye West.
Kanye is making music that breaks barriers and bridges genres. No one else in hip-hop was sampling Daft Punk and giving it the appeal Ye does. A lot of artist will never be able to write and produce a “Flashing Lights”; it’s just not going to happen. Rappers aren’t making “Hey Mama”, “Jesus Walks”, and “See You In My Nightmares”. Kanye is growing as a strong artist lyrically with each new project and his production is peeking to becoming “Stadium Rap”. Soon, he will be doing Kanyepalooza (kinda catchy) and turning out arenas all over the world.
I’m not taking anything away from Jay-Z, he’s a phenomenal artist, but as of right now, Kanye has elevated and moved pass him, and there is nothing wrong with that.
“Otis” and “H.A.M.” both have me very excited and anxious to hear the rest of “Watch the Throne” and I can only expect nothing but great, classic, innovative hip-hop from these two heavyweights.
In conclusion, I didn’t sell drugs, but I watched my “Big Brother” do it, and learned lessons from him to make me a better man, something he wanted me to be from the beginning.
Peace.
