Z's bragging about all the chicks he's got. This tune's basically a California Girls for the post-millennium. Girls Girls Girls starts out with the words 'Put your number on this paper coz I would love to date ya.' which dates this tune because now it would all be all about putting your number in my phone Ariel Pink stylee.
#Zipcloud reviews 2015 code#
It's some kind of code referring to Z as Jehovah. This is one I had heard in, like, the supermarket back in my Richmond days. It's hard not to like the pop smarts on show here. This time it's The Jackson 5's turn to get sampled. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) is another West production. Kanye isn't stupid he would have been well aware of what he was doing here. Particularly how they both had/have penchants for narcissism and megalomania. Kanye samples The Doors Five To One that instantly makes you draw parallels between Z and Jim Morrision. His crew are 'runnin this rap shit!' He's the king, some kind of 'God MC, J Hova.He'll 'kidnap your babies/spit at your lady/We kill you motherfucking ants with a sledgehammer!' He sledges Mobb Deep and calls Nas's career lame to David Bowie's Fame. Then there's his pipes, he just has a great sounding voice and the flow of a champion. He raps 'I'm too sexy for jail like I'm Right Said Fred.' He's representing the hustlers like Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King did before him. This guy's so charismatic he makes saying 'uh uh uh' sound awesome. Z knew this was his time and he was taking it to the hilt, making the most of it. This is infectiously triumphant and it's a hell of a way to start to an album. The Blueprint starts out with The Ruler's Back which was the title of an 80s Slick Rick tune which Bink samples here but the main sample is Jackie Moore's beautiful post- Shaft tune if. West produces 4 tracks here but this was before we knew his style. Kanye West uses some kind of studio trickery that really makes these tracks go pop and by that I mean Boom!. Many of the tunes here are wholesale appropriations of sweet soul tunes from the 70s. Having said that though he wasn't just doing a second or two of sampling then looping it like the old school. I guess I saw Z's style as a bit of a throwback after Timbaland and The Neptunes had taken rap and R&B interstellar. I still don't know if Z's previous 5 LPs are as soul based as The Blueprint. Funnily enough I can't have thought the culture was fully dead as I have NERD's In Search Of and Missy Elliot's So Addictive that were released in 2001 as well. So, as with the previous post on Lil Wayne, I backtracked to see what I'd missed. It gets me pumped every time! I only ended up listening to The Blueprint like 2 years ago when I'd realised rap was going through a little golden era. I liked hearing him on the radio and seeing him on Video Hits and consider 2009's Empire State Of Mind, the tune he did with Alicia Keyes, as pop perfection. I still didn't pursue his musical output though. This is when I thought shit maybe I'm wrong about this guy because this song is fucking great. I didn't realise I knew some of his tunes before I became fully aware of him when I saw the video to 99 Problems in 2004. It had gone fully commercial, ruled the charts and even had its own crap underground like rock 20 or more years earlier.
My thinking at the time was that hip hop had run it's course. I thought he was partaking in a moribund culture. I have a vague recollection around the late 90s early 00s of a dude who I thought was a dull, shite, clueless and overtly commercial rapper helping to hammer the nails into the coffin of hip hop. I don't really know when I became aware of Jay Z.