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The intro “Can’t Knock the Hustle” is a fantastic track where Jay-Z copes with the crime-ridden life he lived by simply stating that it was a necessary hustle you can’t ridicule. Reasonable Doubt explores every little nooks and crannies of the nature of the streets. This all-thrills-no-frills record details the ins and outs of the life Jay-Z used to lead, the listeners get an eagle-eye perspective of the everyday-activities of a dealer in the cold and brutal streets of Brooklyn, New York. It’s blunt, to-the-point and simple, but extremely hard-hitting. Reasonable Doubt is the prime example of a Hip-Hop album whose qualities just boil down to the replay value, the production and the good rapping of each and every track.
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But before the multimillion-dollar business deals and his own Champagne brands, at the very beginning of Jay-Z’s glorious rags-to-riches story is his debut album “Reasonable Doubt” which was released on June 25, 1996, on Roc-A-Fella Records. In his nearly three-decade long career, Jay-Z has done and seen everything, in his own words, he has gone from “Grams to Grammys”.
#Jay z albums reasonable doubt series
Since then, Jay-Z has gone on to release a series of some of the most influential, iconic and critically acclaimed albums and become one of the absolute greatest and most essential rappers ever in history. His career began all the way back in the 90s when he used to sell CDs out of his car. Jay-Z, Shawn Corey Carter, is a legendary rapper hailing from Brooklyn, New York. For most listeners who heard this album in 1996, and perhaps for many who subsequently discovered it after being drawn in by more popular albums like Hard Knock Life, Reasonable Doubt will forever be Jay-Z's one definitive effort.Bold and unforgettable, Reasonable Doubt works both as an epic debut that started the career of one of the greatest rappers ever and a classic Hip-Hop album that will be studied and appreciated for decades by every new generation. And not necessarily because they're inferior, but rather because Reasonable Doubt is such an anomaly. Similar to how every Nas album is continually measured against Illmatic and, in turn, often criticized for being different, every successive Jay-Z album was, likewise, held up to Reasonable Doubt. The lyrics do the same because they're so candidly confessional, but it's the producers more so than Jay-Z himself that make this album so untouchable. This classic production style, which is essentially refined hip-hop in its canonical sense, sets Reasonable Doubt apart from Jay-Z's later work. They represent the pre-gangsta era, a foregone era when samples fueled the beats and turntablism supplied the hooks. Granted, most Jay-Z albums do, but this lineup - Ski, Clark Kent, and DJ Premier - is different. All listeners knew was what's on this autobiographical debut - tales of "extensive hoes with expensive clothes," warnings of "all d'evils that the game'll do," goals of "trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot," and, above all, one reoccuring maxim: "in order to survive, gotta learn to live with regrets." Beyond Jay-Z's rhetorical wealth of insight and wisdom, Reasonable Doubt also boasts an amazing roster of producers. Nobody knew who he was when Reasonable Doubt dropped, keep in mind. Every song belongs here, from timeless hits like "Can't Knock the Hustle" to personal moments like "Regrets." Each song is like a separate chapter, revealing another aspect of Jay-Z's story, which, in 1996, was still untold.
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Unlike most of his subsequent albums, it's seamless. Reasonable Doubt stands out among Jay-Z's many albums and not entirely because it's his debut album.