American Gangster

Judging by this surprisingly strong return to form, Jay-Z might want to consider spending less time in the office and more time at the movies.

It's excellent, to be honest. Jay-Z sounds relaxed and comfortable in his legacy on the mic: he's not feeling as pressed to perform as he did on Kingdom Come, and the MC just lets his talent flow effortlessly.

This is the best music Jay-Z can make as a human--at least by my (his) definitions of what he (we) can do.

Musically, American Gangster is lush and spacious.

There are also sparse, programmed beats from the Neptunes and lesser-knowns like No I.D., with Jay-Z fixing his flow accordingly. What unites the collection more than a specific sound is a narrative arc that loosely parallels Lucas' rise and decline.

This is a very good Jay-Z album. He is, for the most part, doing what he has done before: what he does best.

Forget Frank Lucas: The real black superhero here is Jay, and with American Gangster, Gray-Hova is back in black.

Jay-Z sounds much more engaged on American Gangster, a collection of taut, focused songs heavy on musical references to the '70s

He's not a real gangster, but he is a real poet. And like the greatest of American poets, he admits that, very well then, he contradicts himself. American Gangster contains multitudes.

Ya boy is back with another dark soul-saturated album in the vein of "The Blueprint."

Despite the intro being borrowed from the trailer to American Gangster it essentially reclaims the genre Shawn Carter helped to pioneer from the studio gangstas and plastic pimps that hip-pop is swamped with.

The more you listen to it, the more powerful it becomes.

The "Gangster" portion of the record is, as you'd expect, effortlessly strong.

For all American Gangster's conceptual flair, the purest joy comes from 'Success', a tune which could have slotted into any Jay-Z album.

Jay-Z has rebounded to make one of the year's most interesting and engaging rap records with a sense of immediacy and wordplay that no Denzel Washington film could match.

A tight collection of intelligent numbers that, instead of bombarding us with stale rhyming schemes and plastic beats, groove ever so effectively.

American Gangster sounds less like a last gasp than the possible start to a second act in Jay-Z's career. [Jan 2008, p.103]

The beat selection, personal insight, wit, and overall coherence surpasses that of "Kingdom Come" and fulfills many of the expectations that the latter album failed to meet.

With his delivery having reached comfortable cruising altitude, this is an effective reminder of what success is about--leaving the hustle behind. [Jan 2008, p.91]

This equivocation--a rapper inspired by a movie about a gangster, trying simultaneously to distance himself from rappers, actors and the gangster in question--sums up the album's greatest strength and greatest weakness. Jay-Z is too discerning to ignore the contradictions in his music, even when he's trying to play the role of a coldblooded killer.

Hearing him coast is still better than listening to most rappers trying; but the Jay-Z of today sounds like someone for whom making music is an enjoyable hobby, not a burning need.

Patchy, perhaps, but there's plenty over the course of American Gangster to suggest that, even if sullied by a lack of prolificacy, at least the Brooklyn beatnik is keeping the right company again.

When the natural flow of Nas' rap elevates 'Success' to one of American Gangster's best songs, you kind of wish Nas could have just had the same idea and done the album himself. It shadows the finale of the album, even the tight, appropriately grand title-track that finds Jay-Z at his breeziest.