Kingdom Come (Jay Z album)

Background

Kingdom Come was the first Jay-Z album released since 2003's The Black Album, which had been widely hyped as Jay-Z's "retirement" album. The video for that album's hit single "99 Problems" had ended with Jay-Z going down in a hail of gunfire. Jay-Z stated in interviews that that scene represented the "death" of Jay-Z and the "rebirth" of Shawn Carter. Because of this, Jay-Z had originally planned to release Kingdom Come under his real name of Shawn Carter, but decided in the end to release it under his more-famous stage name Jay-Z. The album's second single, "Lost One" (produced by Dr. Dre) addresses Jay's split with Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash, the death of his nephew, and supposedly his relationship with singer Beyoncé.

Past collaborators Kanye West and particularly Just Blaze made significant contributions to the album's production. This is the first time Dr. Dre has played a substantial role in a Jay-Z album, as he produced four beats and mixed every song on the album. Relatively unknown newcomers B-Money, Syience, and DJ Khalil also contributed to the album's production, as well as Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin. Kingdom Come's opening track "The Prelude" features additional vocals from Pain in da Ass who featured on some of Jay Z's earlier album introductions, impersonating characters from films such as Scarface, Goodfellas, and Carlito's Way.

Release and reception

Kingdom Come was released by Roc-A-Fella Records on November 21, 2006, to generally lukewarm reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 67, based on 23 reviews. According to Pitchfork journalist Peter Macia, "the early consensus on Kingdom Come [was] that it's one of Jay-Z's worst albums." Reviewing the record for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield said "the highs are really high, and the lows are really low", particularly applauding the title track and "Trouble" while finding "Beach Chair" especially awful. Nathan Rabin wrote in The A.V. Club that contrary to the hype leading up to its release, Kingdom Come was "just another solid album" from a rapper who now "succeeds on craft and hard-won experience rather than hunger", finding it devoid of the urgent sense his previous records displayed. Robert Christgau gave it an honorable mention in his MSN Music consumer guide, naming "30 Something" and "Minority Report" as highlights while writing that Jay-Z was enjoying "the pleasures of going legit". In The New York Times, Kelefa Sanneh deemed Kingdom Come an intriguing but "halfway successful" attempt by "a grown-up rapper trying to make a grown-up album". AllMusic editor Andy Kellman was more critical, dismissing the record as "a display of complacency and retreads — a gratuitous, easily resistible victory lap — that very slightly upgrades the relative worth of The Blueprint²." Jay-Z later considered it to be his worst album.

In the first week of release, Kingdom Come sold 680,000 copies and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. It was the ninth album of Jay-Z's career to top the chart and tied him for third with the Rolling Stones for most American number-one albums. On December 14, it was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Kingdom Come was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best Rap Album; the award was won by Kanye West for his 2007 album Graduation. In August 2009, Kingdom Come reached sales of 1,510,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Track listing