Menu
REasonable Doubt
What Makes Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt Album A Classic?
Jay Z’s use of pastiche, in Reasonable Doubt, allows him to connect with a broader audience, he uses the pop reference to “I got the Godfather flow”, to reference the movie The Godfather, the highest grossing film of 1972. Lyrically Jay Z focuses on making these references to popular concepts, that would remain timeless, which in turn renders his album a classic.
|
Figure 1.As noted in Figure 1, Jay Z’s personal stories of a New York drug dealer reference luxury items (91), drugs (46), and murder (30), which are also timeless concepts that have a significant thematic influence in Reasonable Doubt. These thematic lifestyle references allows him to have a connection with both the East and West Coast rappers.
|
In comparison to the two top-selling mainstream rap albums of 1996: Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt, exhibits his concise and frequent use of similes to explain a concept in the rapper's life over the albums,The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory by Tupac and It Was Written by Nas.
Out of Reasonable Doubt’s 97 similes most of them compare an abstract concept to a concrete concept consisting of two words or less. For example, the simile “I gotta let you niggas know the time like Movado,” compares the abstract concept of "time" to the concrete concept of "Movado". |
Figure 2.This style diverges from mainstream rap. In comparison to Jay Z's album, there are less similes of the 35 similes on The Don Killuminati, and of the 30 similes on It Was Written, that compare abstract concepts to more concrete concepts consisting of two words or less.
Jay Z places importance on relatability in order to allow his subject to be accepted by both the West and East Coast audience. As the numbers show in Figure 2, it is lyrical evidence which demonstrates the vast amount of similes in relation to his West Coast and East Coast competitors that exemplifies Reasonable Doubt as a classic. Not only do the similes show relatability, but they also demonstrate the concept of, "the Negro think[ing] in hieroglyphics", that Zora Neal Hurston noted in Characteristics of Negro Expression, which contributes largely to the artistic significance of the album. |
What is the Artistic Significance of Reasonable Doubt?
Figure 3. |
Figure 4. |
Jay Z combines aspects of the classic artists of the East Coast (Fig.3) and West Coast (Fig.4) which bring to the table their own sense of style that Jay Z incorporates into his music as seen in Reasonable Doubt. In doing so, Jay Z is able to transcend into both sides while creating a new sound that appeals to a wider audience. Figure 5. below shows the different genres found in West Coast and East Coast music as well as genres that Jay Z samples for his songs. As shown, West Coast and East Coast artist hardly vary from their own genre sampling whereas Jay Z grasps from both sides. The ability to sample various genres and construct them together allow Jay Z to stand out as the all-in-one artist, rendering Reasonable Doubt as a classic that does not limit itself by a standard East Coast sound.
Figure 5.
Proudly powered by Weebly