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Why is Vol. 2 Ranked #4 by Jay Z?
Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life’s commercial success, with over 5 million albums sold, reflects the album’s fourth place ranking, as Jay Z compromised a personal artistic relationship with Vol. 2 in order to establish himself as the mentor of hip hop.
Vol. 2’s thirteen guest artists compared to Reasonable Doubt (six guest artists), The Blueprint (one guest artist), and The Black Album (one guest artist) already foreshadows a lack of an intimate relationship between Jay Z and Vol. 2. According to Figure 1, guest artists make up nearly half of the spoken words on Vol. 2 with 43% of the album’s recorded words.
These guest artists on Vol. 2 were either already culturally relevant or gained relevance after their association with Jay Z. Foxy Brown (with her 1996 album Ill Na Na reaching 7th place on the Billboard Hot 100), DMX (with his 1998 album It’s Dark and Hell is Hot debuting at 1st place on theBillboard 200) and Too $hort (with his 1996 album Getting’ It reaching number 3 on the Billboard 200) are a few of the pre-established hip hop artists who added pop cultural significance to Vol. 2.
Vol. 2 brought cultural relevance to other fellow hip hop artists such as Ja Rule with Venni Vetti Vicciin 1999 (reaching #3 on the Billboard 200), Memphis Bleek with his 1999 debut album Coming of Age, and Beanie Sigel’s 2000 debut album The Truth. Although Jay Z compromised artistic intimacy,Vol. 2 added more prominence to Jay Z’s name, and helped emerging hip hop artists jump start their careers’.
Vol. 2’s thirteen guest artists compared to Reasonable Doubt (six guest artists), The Blueprint (one guest artist), and The Black Album (one guest artist) already foreshadows a lack of an intimate relationship between Jay Z and Vol. 2. According to Figure 1, guest artists make up nearly half of the spoken words on Vol. 2 with 43% of the album’s recorded words.
These guest artists on Vol. 2 were either already culturally relevant or gained relevance after their association with Jay Z. Foxy Brown (with her 1996 album Ill Na Na reaching 7th place on the Billboard Hot 100), DMX (with his 1998 album It’s Dark and Hell is Hot debuting at 1st place on theBillboard 200) and Too $hort (with his 1996 album Getting’ It reaching number 3 on the Billboard 200) are a few of the pre-established hip hop artists who added pop cultural significance to Vol. 2.
Vol. 2 brought cultural relevance to other fellow hip hop artists such as Ja Rule with Venni Vetti Vicciin 1999 (reaching #3 on the Billboard 200), Memphis Bleek with his 1999 debut album Coming of Age, and Beanie Sigel’s 2000 debut album The Truth. Although Jay Z compromised artistic intimacy,Vol. 2 added more prominence to Jay Z’s name, and helped emerging hip hop artists jump start their careers’.
Figure 1.
Jay Z’s artistic freedom is reduced in this album. In comparison to his other classic albums, Vol 2. has less in just about every overall aspect that contributes to his creation of music. Certain elements are taken into account to determine creative merit: word count, word type, similes, etc. Jay Z’s own number of words, excluding any collaborators or featured artists, is only a mere 4552, about half of the number of words used in Reasonable Doubt and the least amount in all four of his classic albums. Word type is also relatively less with only 1377 examples. The amount of similes he uses is also less than half of what he used in Reasonable Doubt. These numbers show Jay Z’s lack of his own input. With less room for his own creativity, Vol 2. is one of the less diverse albums in his classic collection.
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Figure 1. |
It is important to understand the historical context that influenced Jay Z’s decision to create an album that catered to a sound he knew would be the most widely received in popular culture and ensure massive financial success. Jay Z dominating the rap game and positioning himself as an industry mogul would come at the calculated expense of his artistic merit. Biggie Smalls AKA Notorious B.I.G., the reigning king of Hip Hop, was murdered on March 9, 1997 leaving the music world wondering who would take the throne. Releasing the album Vol. 2 on September 29, 1998, Jay Z legitimizes his claim to the crown. Jay Z, ever the businessman, knew the time was ripe to establish himself and prove his worth in terms of wealth and influence. With Vol. 2's vast financial success, Jay Z makes his name synonymous with the burgeoning plutocracy of Hip Hop, positioning himself as the next in line to fill the “Notoriously Big” shoes of his mentor. It has been argued Jay Z used a format very similar to the one Biggie had in mind for his next album to create Vol. 2. However, this is mere speculation. What cannot be argued is that Jay Z, a man with a knack for seeing an opportunity, applied all he learned from Biggie Small’s successful, but all too short, career and built a brand and an empire that surpassed all other contenders in the rap game. Jay Z knew the artistic merit of VOl. 2 might be sacrificed to some extent; he also knew he would have the ear of the people for generations to come, ensuring his voice and artistic genius a longevity that only financial success and accolades can bring to an artist with much to say.
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