Jay-Z - American Gangster

[method77]

Good reviews all around. Haven't heard it yet but it must be good.

Tracks:

Intro

Pray

American Dreamin'

Hello Brooklyn 2.0 (feat. Lil' Wayne)

No Hook

Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)...

Sweet

I Know

Party Life

Ignorant Sh*t (feat. Beanie Sigel)

Say Hello

Success (feat. Nas)

Fallin'

Blue Magic

American Gangster

Link

[DudeAsInCool]

Here is a video for Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)

Jay-Z - Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)(New)

Uploaded by foxysoul

[NelsonG]

Snippets of the entire album:

I've heard Hello Brooklyn and Roc Boys before I saw this... I liked the Beastie Boys' sampled tracks' heavy bass on Hello Brooklyn.

Singles out will be "Hello Brooklyn", "I Know", "Blue Magic" and "Roc Boys" ... It's an album that has to be taken in and listened to as a whole or else it won't have the same impact. It's also not a hit making machine.

[Excrement_Cranium]

I have to admit that I am extremely interested, despite the fact that I have only liked about 1/10th of Jigga's material.

Maybe it's the geek in me, but I love the cohesion that comes out of concept albums.

[DudeAsInCool]

Maybe it's the geek in me, but I love the cohesion that comes out of concept albums.

Here is some more info on the album via Wikipedia

American Gangster is a "concept album" which is inspired by the film of the same name.

Jay-Z originally stated that he recorded nine tracks for the album, but the final track listing accumulated fifteen overall cuts (two bonus tracks). Jay-Z also stated that almost every song is based on a specific scene from the film Def Jam's Senior Vice President of Marketing Tracey Waples noted that each track from the album will have its own "mini-film.

As for the direction of the album, Jay-Z used personal memories he hadn't touched on in a while, specifically memories from his early life when he lived in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects:

"It's a New York City tale, you know. So as soon as the movie came on, it was like familiar, things that my pop seen and my uncles seen and, you know, different things like that, things I've seen growing up. So they resonated with me in a way, the story, as well as, I mean, even though everything happens, you know, the way it turns out, you know, it's one of those movies that where you champion the good guy, because the good guy, you know, he don't seem like a bad guy, and the bad guy — I mean the good guys are bad. You know, that complex — the complexity of human beings in this thing was amazing to me. I loved the complexity of the human beings." - From The Charlie Rose Show, which is posted here

Jay-Z pulled American Gangster from the popular iTunes Music Store. According to Jay-Z, he feels the project should be digested as a whole, and not as single tracks.

[DudeAsInCool]

Here are the reviews...

[Excrement_Cranium]

Oh yeah.

I read about it in Rolling Stone.

Thank you YVCC library!