American Gangster (album)

Background

Jay-Z originally stated he recorded nine tracks for the album, but the final track listing accumulated fifteen overall cuts (two bonus tracks). He also stated that almost every song is based on a specific scene from the film based on Frank Lucas, a former drug kingpin. Def Jam executive Tracey Waples noted each track from the album will have its own "mini-film".The Album cover and music videos were costume designed by June Ambrose. As for the direction of the album, Jay-Z used personal memories he hadn't touched on in a while, specifically memories from his early life when he lived in Brooklyn's Marcy Houses.

On November 9, 2007, Jay-Z appeared on the Charlie Rose Show to discuss the album. When asked about how the film gave life to this album, he stated "It's a New York City true story, you know. So as soon as the movie came on, it was like familiar, things that my pop seen and my uncles seen and, you know, different things like that, things I've seen growing up. So they resonated with me in a way, the story, as well as, I mean, even though everything happens, you know, the way it turns out, you know, it's one of those movies that where you champion the bad guy, because the bad guy, you know, he don't seem like a bad guy, and the good guy — I mean the good guys are bad. You know, that complex — the complexity of human beings in this thing was amazing to me. I loved the complexity of the human beings".

Music and lyrics

According to Yahoo! Music journalist Angus Batey, American Gangster used "a selection of beats built from '70s soul and funk" to reflects "the period setting; lyrically, its primary theme is an investigation of the evolution of the gangsta archetype, looking at how the drug dealer became a semi-sympathetic outlaw figure, examining the contradictions inherent in those who chase the American Dream on the far side of legality, and ruminating on what this period of US history might yet come to mean". Although Jay-Z says American Gangster was inspired by the movie of the same name, songs such as "Say Hello" touch on the topics of censorship and the Jena 6 controversy.

The Neptunes provide production twice on the album, with the first single "Blue Magic" which is the fourteenth track, and the eighth track "I Know". Diddy and two of his producers known as LV & Sean C, who are from his production team, The Hitmen, are responsible for six tracks on the album. They are credited with the second single "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)...", "American Dreamin'" (where his other production partner Mario Winans assists), "No Hook", "Party Life", "Pray", and finally "Sweet". DJ Toomp delivers one track for the album, while Just Blaze is credited for a bonus track and the re-make of "Ignorant Shit". Kanye West mentor No I.D. gives two tracks also, one which he co-produces with Jermaine Dupri and vice versa. Finally, three lesser known producers lend hand to the "Intro", which is credited to Chris Flames and co-production from Idris "Driis" Elba, while Bigg D produces the Beastie Boys-sampling Lil Wayne assisted track, "Hello Brooklyn 2.0".

Jay-Z would have the film – American Gangster – playing on the monitors above the recording booth as a source of motivation during the recording sessions. In an interview with MTV, producer LV from The Hitmen said "Jay would have the beats...He'd do the record, and he'd send it back to us. We'd fill in the blanks as far as making them full records. From having live horns, live strings, live drummers. This percussion dude, he was coming in with bottles, banging on bottles, just sprinkles of shit. We went all out. We brought in musicians to bring it out. Jay probably just heard a sample and some drums. Once we got the vocals back, we brought in all the extra candy".

Release and reception

American Gangster was made available for digital download in its entirety, at Amazon.com, Roc-A-Fella's website, and Rhapsody on November 6, 2007. Jay-Z had the album removed from the iTunes Store, explaining that "as movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles." It was eventually released to iTunes in 2011. In the first week of release, American Gangster debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 425,861 copies in the United States. It was Jay-Z's tenth number-one album, tying him with Elvis Presley at second for total number-one albums; the record is held by The Beatles. On December 6, 2007, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Jay-Z promoted the album with the American Gangster Live concert tour, performing material only from the album in five smaller sized venues across the US, starting on November 6 in Los Angeles and ending on November 12 in Philadelphia. According to a statement from Roc-A-Fella.com, the five-city club tour sold out in less than 60 seconds.

American Gangster received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 83, based on 25 reviews. Rob Sheffield deemed it a vast improvement over Jay-Z's previous record, Kingdom Come, writing in Rolling Stone that the rapper "sounds relaxed, no longer worried about impressing anyone." Reviewing the album for Entertainment Weekly, Neil Drumming said it was more than "a throwback album" and that Jay-Z adjusts his flow to each production while "emerging cockier than ever on the next track". Village Voice critic Amy Linden praised its live instrumentation, finding it lush, sexy, and "tailor-made for the '70s theme ... without being shamelessly retro". According to The Observer's Steve Yates, "it's Jay-Z's and American Gangster's triumph that reflecting on his appetite seems to have reawakened it". Nathan Rabin from The A.V. Club called the record a "surprisingly strong return to form", while Hot Press journalist Chris Wasser found its songs smooth and clever, "intelligent numbers that, instead of bombarding us with stale rhyming schemes and plastic beats, groove ever so effectively." Greg Kot was impressed by the complexity of Jay-Z's metaphors about drug trafficking, making music, and relationships; he wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the rapper offers the kind of multidimensional lyrics that characterize classic hip hop.

Kelefa Sanneh wrote a lukewarm review of the album in The New York Times, believing that Jay-Z's reluctance to indulge in the gangsta rap lyricism of his past resulted in wavering, equivocal songs such as "No Hook" and "Say Hello". "Once, words just seemed to flow out of him, as if he couldn't help himself", Sanneh wrote. "Now it's clearer than ever that he’s choosing them carefully." Louis Pattison of NME was more critical and called it a regression from the "slightly bloated" Kingdom Come, lamenting the shortage of "don't-give-a-fuck attitude" highlighted on "Success" in favor of less effective raps exploiting Jay-Z's entrepreneurial personage. In MSN Music, Robert Christgau cited "Say Hello" and "Blue Magic" as highlights while humorously using sampled film dialogue from the latter track to frame his lukewarm opinion of the album: "Jay-Z, that's a brand name, like Pepsi, that's a brand name – he stands behind it, he guarantees it, even if you don't know him any more than you know the chairman of Universal Music".

American Gangster was ranked in the top ten of several music publications' end-of-year lists, including The Austin Chronicle (number one), Spin (number eight), and Rolling Stone magazine (number three). Rolling Stone also named the album's second single, "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is...)", the best single of 2007. In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, American Gangster finished 18th in the best albums voting. In an interview with Jeff Johnson of cable network BET, 44th United States President Barack Obama said he was a fan of the album.

Track listing

Notes