Product Description

'American Gangster' is Jay-Z's tenth studio album. A semi-concept album inspired by Ridley Scott's film of the same name, it sees Jay-Z chronicle his time as a street hustler. It is a return to a grittier street sound than his predecessor 'Kingdom Come'. Lyrics are nostalgically woven with tales ofclandestine activities in a ruthless nineties New York . Comparisons are being made to his debut album 'Reasonable Doubt' and with good reason. Features the single 'Roc Boys' withP Diddy.

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. Pray
3. American Dreamin'
4. Hello Brooklyn 2.0 - Jay-Z & Lil' Wayne
5. No Hook
6. Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)...
7. Sweet
8. I Know
9. Party Life
10. Ignorant Shit - Jay-Z & Beanie Sigel
11. Say Hello
12. Success - Jay-Z & Nas
13. Fallin'
14. Blue Magic
15. American Gangster

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3142 in Music
• Released on: 2007-11-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
Conceived as an unofficial soundtrack to the Ridley Scott movie of the same name, American Gangster sees us getting reacquainted with a quite different Jay-Z to the mainstream-courting comeback kid that hooked up with Beyonce and Coldplay’s Chris Martin on 2006’s Kingdom Come. This, Jay-Z’s second post-retirement album, is hip-hop to the bone: a record steeped in the sounds, iconography and soul of the New York underworld, with the lion’s share of production handled by P Diddy’s in-house team The Hitmen and guest spots from Beanie Sigel ("Ignorant Shit"), Lil Wayne (the crunk-like, Beastie Boys-sampling "Hello Brooklyn") and long-time rival Nas. The Nas track, "Success", is a particular winner, the pair burying the hatchet over a gorgonzola-scented organ break, rejecting the trappings of success with a truly lordly arrogance: "How many times can I go to Mr Chow’s/Tao’s, Nobu – hold up!/Let me move my bowels". Other highlights come with the Neptunes-produced "Blue Magic" and slick dealer’s anthem "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)", and while you feel American Gangster is something of a stasis for Jay-Z, an album that sees him revisiting those well-worn themes of hustling and shotting, it remains a treat to hear him on the mic. –-Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Classic
Absolute classic. Jay's second best album in my opinion. Lyrically flawless, very good concepts and ideas and a near perfect selection of beats. A must have CD

AMERICAN GANGSTER
Since 1996, when he released his debut CD Reasonable Doubt, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, has been putting it down pretty much every year. My favorite tracks from "Reasonable Doubt" ended up being "Can I Live", "Can't Knock The Hustle" w/Mary J. Blige, "D'Evils" which was produced by DJ Premier, and "Brooklyn's Finest", a memorable collaboration between Jay-Z and the late, great Notorious BIG. 1997's "In My Lifetime Volume 1" was definitely influenced by Sean "Puffy" Combs with tracks like "Sunshine" and "I Know What Girls Like" w/Lil Kim, however, Jay-Z still managed to bring us some of the flavor from "Reasonable Doubt" with tracks like "Where I'm From", "Imaginary Player", "You Must Love Me", "Streets Is Watching" and "A Million & One Questions/Rhyme No More". Jay-Z clearly was affected by the passing of his friend Notorious BIG, but he still managed to put out a well rounded CD. A year later, Jay-Z was back again with Vol. 2, Hard Knock Life. The 1st official single, "Hard Knock Life" created a heavy buzz for this CD, as well as, the fact that "Money Ain't A Thing", which was on Jermaine Dupri's "Life In 1472" CD, "Can I Get A..." w/Ja Rule, was featured on the Rush Hour soundtrack and "It's Alright" was featured on the Streets Is Watching soundtrack, were also featured on this CD. My personal favorites included "If I Should Die" w/Da Ranjahz, "Jigga What, Jigga Who" w/Jaz and "Reservoir Dogs" w/The LOX, Sauce Money & Beanie Sigel. In 1999, Jay-Z returned with "Volume 3: Life & Times Of Shawn Carter". My favorites included the 1st single, "Do It Again" w/Beanie Sigel, "So Ghetto" and the 4 tracks that Timbaland produced on this CD: "It's Hot", "Big Pimpin' w/UGK, "Come & Get Me" and "Snoopy Track" which featured Juvenile on the hook. In 2000, Jay-Z released, what ended up being more of a collaborative CD between Jay, Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, "The Dynasty: Roc La Familia". My favorite tracks were "This Can't Be Life" w/Jay, Beanie & Scarface, "Soon You'll Understand", "1-900-Hustler" w/Freeway, "Change The Game" and the 1st single, "I Just Wanna Love U". 2001 brought us The Blueprint, which clearly should be in most people's Top 3 Jay-Z albums. My favorite tracks were "Takeover", which lyrically challenged Mobb Deep's longevity and the fact that Jay-Z thought that "Illmatic" was the only CD of Nas with any relevance, which wasn't true, "Renagade" w/Eminem, "U Don't Know", "Song Cry" and "Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)". 2002 brought us the double CD, "Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse". There were many good songs on this release, but they were clearly overshadowed by the filler tracks that were on both CDs. Some of them being unbearable at times. My favorite tracks were "The Watcher 2" w/Dr. Dre, Rakim & Truth Hurts, "Poppin' Tags" w/Big Boi, Killer Mike & Twista, "Excuse Me Miss", "Hovi Baby", "Meet The Parents", "Some How, Some Way" w/Beanie Sigel & Scarface, and the remix to "U Don't Know" w/MOP. 2003 brought us what was supposed to be Jay-Z's last CD in The Black Album. I figured that Jay-Z would just take a break and come back, which he did of course, but "The Black Album" is definitely one of my favorite Jay-Z CDs of all time. My favorites included "What More Can I Say?", "Allure", "Lucifer", "Moment Of Clarity" and "My 1st Song". 3 years later, Jay-Z returned with Kingdom Come. I personally liked the CD because at the time, it seemed that was the place where Jay-Z saw himself at that point of his career. Fans expected to get another "Reasonable Doubt" 10 years later and he wasn't ready to release that type of CD at that moment.

Well ladies and gentlemen, less than a year later, that moment has arrived with "American Gangster". Jay-Z either did his research on Frank Lucas or he was able to get a very advanced copy of the movie. The reason why I say this is that Jay-Z does an A+ job of merging "Reasonable Doubt", which were the true life and times of Shawn Carter before he started rapping, the life and times of Frank Lucas and several events that happened throughout the movie "American Gangster". Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) from The Wire, who is also a DJ by the way, gets things started along with Angel Wood by providing the intro and Jay-Z takes over from there. As reviewer "Josephll" stated, "Pray" gives you a clear indication of what to expect from this release. Beyonce provides the spoken words, the lovely Cheri Dennis, along with Shannon Jones provide the haunting "Pray For Me" on the background vocals and Jay-Z gives you various moments that happened when he was a hustler and he manages to capture the moment of various scenes in the movie "American Gangster". This is definitely my favorite song on this CD. He also shows you that he was listening to Kanye's "Graduation" CD as he points out that "Everything I seen, made me Everything I Am". "American Dreamin'" clearly has an old school feel to it as the production of Diddy, yes Diddy, LV & Sean C (Grind Music) make excellent use of an oldie but goodie with Marvin Gaye's "Soon I'll Be Loving You Again". The track doesn't do as good of a job of storytelling as "Pray" did but it's still a track worth listening to. I was surprised that Jay-Z featured Lil Wayne on "Hello Brooklyn 2.0" but the more I listen to the track, the more that I like the song. It probably would have been better if Lil Wayne hadn't had 26 mixtapes and 175 guest appearances this year..lol "No Hook" has Jay-Z bringing up several events that led to the fact of why he was hustlin' in the streets in the first place. His father basically played no role in his life at all and the streets kept callin' until he finally answered. He does his best to characterize this as a street anthem as he says this is not for commercial usage and to not call it music. "Roc Boys (And The Winner Is...) is the 2nd single from "American Gangster" and features a "sick" horn sample that Grind Music used from "Make The Road By Walking" by The Menahan Street Band. Even your great uncle will be doing a 2 step to this track as Jay-Z celebrates all of the success from the benefits of being a hustler. "Sweet" continues where "Roc Boys" left off at a slower place as you may blink and think you're actually listening to a rap version of the "Superfly" soundtrack instead of "Amercian Gangster". This is another stellar production from Grind Music. The Neptunes stop by to bring us "I Know". Hopefully, you won't think this song is actually about a female. Jay-Z does a good job of disguising what the real meaning of the song is, which in my opinion, is about how much people actually need "blue magic" and the affects on them if they don't have it at the current time or if they are fighting the addiction of it. I hate to keep bringing this up but Grind Music clearly have outdone themselves with the production on "Party Life". Jay-Z goes back to his "Imaginary Player" days as he officially shuts things down with "Ya Boy is Off The Wall, These other n______ is Tito". "Ignorant S____" features Beanie Sigel as Just Blaze, who has produced several Jay-Z classics and one of my all time favorite Jay-Z collaborations with Freeway & Beanie Sigel, "What We Do", samples The Isley Brothers' "Between The Sheets" for one of my favorite tracks on this CD. One reason why I like this track so much is that when you hear this sample you are use to hearing Biggie and his anthem for the ladies "Big Poppa". Just Blaze samples a different part of "Between The Sheets" to create a track that would pass for being a street anthem, especially with Jay's and Beanie's lyrics on the track. "Say Hello" is another nice track that is produced by DJ Toomp, who produced TI's "What You Know" and Kanye West's "Big Brother" from Kanye's "Graduation" CD. "Success" is produced by NO ID and Jermaine Dupri and features another track that has Jay-Z and Nas on the track. The two formal rivals were featured on "Black Republican" from Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead CD. Both of these tracks are stellar collaborations, in my opinion, but some fans expected better results from songs that featured Jay-Z & Nas. "Fallin'" is also produced by NO ID and Jermaine Dupri as Bilal joinis in to deliver some nice vocals this time around. "Fallin"" would have been perfect in the movie when Frank decided to leave the officer the turkey at his doorstep and then all of a sudden the officer's car blows up shortly thereafter. Frank Lucas knew that would come back to get him in the end. "Blue Magic" is the 1st single but oddly it appears as a bonus track. Regardless, when you hear the Neptunes track thumping in your speakers and Jay's slick slang on the track, the last thing you will worry about is whether it's a single or a bonus track. The title track closes thing out, however, Just Blaze shouldn't have came up with a track that sounds too much like "Show 'Em What You Got".

Overall, as I stated before, Jay-Z does an A+ job of merging "Reasonable Doubt", the real life and times of Frank Lucas and the events that happened during the course of the movie "American Gangster". I personally feel that "American Gangster" is right up there with "Reasonable Doubt", "The Blueprint" and "The Black Album", which are my 3 favorite Jay-Z CDs. Lyrically, Jay-Z shows that he is still deserved to be in the conversation with the best rappers today. I am not talking about the MTV list that had Jim Jones and other non lyrical rappers that find their ways up the popularity charts these days. I am talking about legitimate lyricists in 2007 like Jay-Z, Nas, Common, Phonte from Little Brother, Talib Kweli, etc. If you have been a fan of the majority of Jay-Z's releases, you should also add "American Gangster" to your collection.

The Emperor's wearing no clothes
This is music for the easily led, easily pleased, johnny come lately losers, who only listen to what MTV dishes up and what's unjustly promoted in rap mags (commercial suck ups). I love rap, but i just can't listen to Jay z, it's just soooo contrived, commercial and formulamatic, it's just rap by numbers. But hey, the pop fans love him don't they.
You know this fella was born in the late 60's and couldn't break through at the time of hip hop's zenith (late 80's early 90's), he just wasn't good enough for real rap fans. It was only when pop fans and European kids started listenin' to weak rap and after most decent groups had split or the main players died that Jay Z strolled on the scene with "Reasonable doubt" 1996. He was an old man at 27 years old making a debut. Tupac had just died and hip hop was at an all time low. There was a small window of opportunity for mediocrity to break through, and Jay Z took it. His music just so lame, contrived and predictable, i could honestly next guess his lines on 99 percent of tracks, it's that predictable. The guy has nothing to say that i haven't heard a million times before.
The irony of the reasonable doubt album is that most of the beats were by the brilliant dj premier and yet Jay z still sounded too one dimensional and monotonal for my likin'. Having said that i will say "Reasonable doubt" stands out as his best work, and is the closest he's ever been to making true hip hop without spittin' inane boring lyrics, only entertaining to the easily pleased and intellectual pygmies.
Since then it's been downhill all the way, but uphill with the council estate kids, hard men wannabes and the fake rap fans. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
His subject matter is just so bland, trite, lazy and repetitive(money, B..........itches,Nigs, mo fo's, blah, blah, boring, boring, oh and don't forget to mention how amazing you are Jay Z),is this really thought provoking to anyone with a brain.
So Jay Z had hit the jackpot, the 90's were the time that the music industry was throwing rap skits it every other song, and quickly music exec's realized serious money was to be made now pop audiences( Jay Z fans) had a taste for watered down rap.
There's a massive difference between pop rap and real rap and if people realize that i ain't got a problem with popsta's like Jay z and P Diddy making bucket loads of cash out of albums with generic raps and endless guest appearances from popular singers on every other song (that ain't rap). Yeah there's more sales, but only by prostituting yourself with a pseudo watered down R and B, hip hop hybrid, throw in a few mo fo's the odd Nig here and their, oh and don't forget to mention the B.......itches, just to keep the halfwits happy(yawn), and in rolls the money. Imagine Chuck D doing a duet with Beyonce or Christina Aguilera to boost sales(i think not). It makes me laugh to read that Jay Z and P Diddy are the richest guys in hip hop (allegedly 1 billion each), no they're not, cos that ain't hip hop, true hip hop fans don't buy this horses backside, robotic, formulamatic, cliche infested, R and B, tick every box for maximum financial gain hybrid rap.
The really worrying thing is that the people that buy this kindergarten rap (and there's enough of em') are actually allowed a vote' and have a say in how the country is being run. frightening or what? Let's I Q test these freaks.
Worst still is the rap magazines (we all know who they are), these fella's should really be defining real rap from fake watered down pop, R and B nonsense, but they don't bother, they seem to bum these guys realizing there's more support from pop fans the johnny come lately and the intellectually stunted who listen to this posturing, self glorifying bull.... This means more sales and money for their mags if they suck up and sellout to the plastic rappers.
Is nobody gonna stand up, get a back bone and speak up for real rap (now underground)or is it lost to mtv and radio forever?
Even now Jay Z and P Diddy are about "40 years old", you'd think, "right, move over let the young cats in", but no, these two are not happy bringing rap down themselves but now they're washed out, they're producing the next generation of hip popsta's (when will it end). Listen for yourself, see what you think? If your a real fan of rap, you wont like this monotonal self-indulgent tripe, if you like it, you ain't a real fan of rap, just a sheep listenin' to "media darlin" FM, where commercial rap's spoon fed from a plate. Free your minds, if you're a rap fan, search for the real talent, don't be lazy and listen to what the media want you to listen to, be an individual, break free.
Keep it real, lose the wack rap. Sales and profit don't make it rap, they just mean it's popular with the masses, and that ain't the same thing.
Jay Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz move over, it's sounds tired now, i think you've got away with it for long enough. If you bought American Gangster don't forget the best of "N sync" while your at it and maybe Britney's latest to complete the collection. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. True, this is popular music , just ain't true rap though.
American Gangster's just a movie cash-in album that sounds real tired.
I can see through this album like an x-ray, and if you can't, keep watching MTV and listen to what they tell you to, cos' remember you ain't got a mind of your own. It's a shame really but if Jay Z is your thing, you don't know true hip hop an all.
Jay Z, 40 year old guy's should move over and let the true talent half yer age take over, coz' hip hop needs pushin' forward bigtime and u ain't gonna do it bro.