"Reasonable Doubt" is one of my favorite albums of all-time -- a stunning piece of work, full of empathy, sadness, wit, and precise technical skill. He's had lesser good albums since then ("The Blueprint" and "The Black Album" most notably), but in general his fall from grace was epic -- even by his second album (the middling "In My Lifetime, Vol. 1," which I nonetheless have something of a soft spot for), he'd lost virtually all of what made his debut so extraordinary, sacrificing raw craftsmanship for elements of artifice and lowest-common-denominator radio rap drivel that's poisoned his catalog ever since.
He's also one of the few rappers who I feel really betrays his age on record as he gets older -- his voice is getting wheezier, thinner, which affects its ability to convey confidence. None of that going on on the new Nas album, the last Tribe album, etc. Somehow Jay ended up with Eddie Vedder syndrome.
Very nice sounding album on first listen. I saw a review that said something like it sounded like Kanye was making her a MBDTF, but they were trying to make that sound like a negative. How in the fuck is that a bad thing?
Listened to the first four of these albums (haven't gotten around to the Teyana Taylor one yet) while out mowing the lawn this morning. I love every one of these albums -- each on their own terms, and then again as a piece, with their little threads of interconnectedness, the general moment in time they represent. The two Kanye albums especially feel like weird little parallel universes to one another -- one story with the same arc, run through two seperate aesthetic filters.
As an aside, I feel like I've read a lot of criticism of "Nasir" faulting it for not addressing the Kelis situation. This seems so absurd to me, as if an artist has some duty to use his music as a platform to clear up the tabloid gossip in his personal life so that we can all feel looped in. What a bunch of horseshit.