give what I wrote up above about his post Black Album approach of grown man rap anyways. And yes as I mentioned he shifted his objectives with his albums post retirement.

That’s kind of the point - post Black Album he moved away from making albums with broad appeal that everyone would like, towards joints that felt good to him as “albums”. That means you’re going to have some people who don’t dig it. There’s some folks who didn’t like American Gangster too, I remember hearing complaints about him going back to drug rap (I did a long post in the Lesson back in the day arguing that that was his entire point, pretty clear when you hear Ignorant Shit and I Know which beyond surface are about the exact same thing but opposite sides of the same double entendre.)

But anyways - I feel like Jay HAD to move on to more “adult” type topics post Black Album. There’s different approaches to this, and he did that a few different ways - some unsuccessfully. I love 4:44 because in addition to the theme being “personal and introspective”, the beats knock and sound cohesive together thanks to No ID, Jay’s lyrical skill is on point without any corny experimentation like Beach Chair or some of the joints on Magna Carter, and because he actually stuck to the theme and didn’t try to throw something on there trying to pander a broad audience to get sales.