Cole and Kendrick Lamar, Carter still manages to get a few licks in. A much-needed multi-level call for unity (“ Nobody wins when the family feuds!”), Family Feud takes a minimalist approach with its persistent background vocal loop and playful filter work.Īt a time when the fate of lyricism appears to rest on the shoulders of middleweights J. Paired with a flawless Frank Ocean hook, the sampling of Nina Simone’s classic Baltimore rendition for Caught Their Eyes creates a beauteous funk-reggae fusion, though Carter regrettably uses it to kvetch about the folks (mis)managing Prince’s estate. Enjoying a career resurgence following his impressive work on Vince Staples’ 2016 double LP Summertime 06, the veteran producer provides warm beds of fractured soul, rugged percussion and boom-bap revivalism here. If being lectured by a multi-millionaire about why you’re still poor is your fetish, there you go.įortunately, the dryer bits of 4:44 find gratifying counterpoints in No I.D.’s immaculate beats. On The Story of O.J., he assumes this role of keynote speaker with unapologetic ease, frowning upon Instagram showiness – “ Y’all on the ‘Gram holding money to your ear / There’s a disconnect, we don’t call that money over here” – while boasting of his exponentially fruitful investments in modern art. The infotainment of 4:44 finds him delivering messages of black empowerment through the lens of commerce, with seminar-quality lessons about credit, spending and generational wealth straight outta the hotel near the airport. But as Carter has made clear before, he’s “ a business, man”.
There are those who will frown upon the raising of such gory details in an album review.
Jay z 444 album producers free#
How fitting that the financial relationship between Sprint, TIDAL and Shawn Carter has incestuously birthed the instantaneously platinum Jay-Z full-length 4:44, a million digital copies of which were delivered directly to the people via free download.
When the likes of Beyoncé or Kanye West deliver an exclusive there, the perception we’re meant to have is that the artist directly benefits from the collective monthly pittances of the company’s subscribership. Every time Spotify serves one of its free users an advertisement, it echoes the grim, urban worlds of countless sci-fi features where denizens’ data-mined personal information leads to eerily targeted marketing.Īn ad-free platform for paying subscribers (apart from its free trials for Sprint customers), TIDAL takes pride in its public-facing artist ownership approach. This, of course, was before TIDAL came along.Ī general unwillingness on the part of people to abandon piracy and materially support artistry led to the streaming industrial complex we see today – a tightly spun web of music services backed by Fortune 500 behemoths and venture capitalists. The seemingly anti-capitalist move promised a quasi-utopian, fan-friendly future where artists could connect directly with their listeners rather than through record labels or other such corporate intermediaries. Ten years ago this October, the pay-what-you-like release of Radiohead’s In Rainbows hinted at new paradigms to come in music distribution.