Premier had crafted some of Jay’s best tracks in the ‘90s, and according to a interview with Premier, Jay had told him to block out a few weeks on his calendar so that the two could hole up in the studio and record the album. He originally conceived it a handful of years prior, during the late ‘90s, as a retirement album to be produced entirely by DJ Premier. Jay-Z went through several iterations of The Black Album as a concept before recording and releasing the final project. Commercially, it’s Jigga’s most successful album of the ‘00s, having gone three times Platinum and having sold more than 3.5 million copies. Many of the beats are strong, but there are still a few notable misfires. The album’s production is where some inconsistency lies. Jay-Z spends much of the album exploring the beginning of his career as he was supposedly reaching its end. It sits comfortably just outside of the top 5 of his discography and features some of his stronger lyrical work. While not without its flaws, the finished product is still one of the better releases in Jay-Z’s career. So his eighth album, The Black Album, was to be his final artistic statement, the capper to a legendary career. He was in the beginning stages of his relationship with Beyoncé Knowles, the “hottest chick in the game.” Given all these factors, it seemed like an opportune moment to retire. A year earlier, he had released the Blueprint 2 double-album, a bloated, mixed bag of tracks that showcased his best and worst habits. But he was also not always living up to his potential. After seven years of recording and releasing albums, he was considered by many to be the greatest rapper of all time.īy 2003, he’d sold tens of millions of albums, and commanded respect among both mainstream audiences and hip-hop heads. He consistently sold millions of records each time he released an album and crafted some of the most recognizable and beloved hip-hop tracks of the ’90s and ’00s. Jay-Z likely didn’t step away earlier because he was just too damn successful to do so. It wasn’t until 2003 when he finally formally announced that he was retiring from recording albums, and The Black Album, released 15 years ago, was intended to be his swan song. 2.Hard Knock Life (1998) is about Jay-Z deciding to step aside and let his protégé Memphis Bleek take his place. The rapper, who’s become an indisputable household name inside the world of pop culture, had been openly pondering his retirement since the release of his very first album Reasonable Doubt (1996). Happy 15th Anniversary to Jay-Z’s eighth studio album The Black Album, originally released November 14, 2003.įew rappers were so obsessed with their own retirement as Shawn “ Jay-Z” Carter.
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