The fuck are you people listening to?

If you wanted to say he was mailing it in on parts of Blueprint 3, I'd grant you that. If you wanted to say it sounded like he lost a step on parts of Watch the Throne, fine.

But not here.

I'd say this is pretty easily his best spitting over the course of an album since The Black Album. I ride for American Gangster, but this gets the edge. I'm not saying this is the pinnacle of MCing or that he's reinventing the wheel, but if you like Jay-Z, this is as close to prime-era Jay-Z as your're going to get nowadays.

He's paranoid. He's about as successful as any musician could be and he's scared it makes him a target (for the jackers, the jealous ass crackers, and the boys in blue). He's scared that he's been living SO FUCKING WELL for so long that the bottom is going to fall out. That's why he specifically invokes Biggie (both with the sample of his voice and the interpolation of his lyrics) on the song where he's almost preemptively apologizing to his infant daughter in case he's not there for her someday.

He also shits on himself IN THE FIRST SONG for bitching about weak shit like paparazzi following him when there are real problems like teenagers getting killed on a daily basis in the places where he grew up.

I mean, he wants to live like a high-society elite but he doesn't want to feel like a sellout. He wants to celebrate his success but he feels the need to defend it and rationalize it. He wants "a wife who fucks him like a prostitute." He wants to own the most prestigious symbols of high-brow art all for the love of drug-dealing. In other words, he wants it both ways, he knows it, and he's telling you so.

He also recognizes the supreme irony of partying on yachts on the open sea when it was boats on the open sea that represented unspeakable oppression for his ancestors. His boat is LITERALLY the antithesis of the Santa Maria.

Anyhow, that's just my first opinion. I've only been through the whole thing twice, but right today I'd confidently give this shit a very solid 4/5.