Songoftheday 08/30/24 - I probably owe it to y'all pro'ly be locked by the force, tryna hustle some things that go with the Porsche...

 

 

"Dirt Off Your Shoulder" - Jay-Z

from the album The Black Album (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song comes from Sean Carter, aka rapper Jay-Z, who had signaled his "retirement" with his eighth studio release The Black Album, preceded by the single "Change Clothes", which hit the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 at the end of 2003. At the same time, album cut (and "B-side" of the international CD Single) "What More Can I Say" also had enough urban radio airplay to place on Billboard's R&B singles chart peaking at #46. 

The second promoted single from the Black Album was "Dirt Off Your Shoulder". Written by Jay-Z with producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, the track has the rapper in a twisting road of brags and disses, the first on his fans and allies and the latter on the law and peers who come for him. But amidst it all he brushes them all off, hence the titular dig. It's refreshing that in that spot of time he needs no hype men or collaborators, and Timbaland supplies a groove that's dynamic and fresh even twenty years later. There's a lot of boasting in rap those days, but Jay-Z has the history and catalog to back it up, and the track ended up being a phenomenon. The music video had the rapper doing radio pop-ins and a street appearance that shuts off the lights...

"Dirt Off Your Shoulder" became the second top ten hit from The Black Album (and fifth overall at the time as a lead artist) in April of 2004, while spending a week at #3 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart and hitting #2 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song rose to #18 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #3 on the Mainstream R&B Airplay list, and #5 at the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, "Dirt On Your Shoulder" was the B-Side of "99 Problems", which made it to #12 on the British Singles chart (that song will be a future SOTD).

Jay-Z and the Black Album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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On his collaborative album with nu-metal band Linkin Park, Jay-Z merged "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" with that group's "Lying From You"...

Here's Jay-Z live in concert with the song...

and lastly from BBC Radio 1's Hackney Weekend Festival in the UK in 2012...

Tomorrow I'll roll out my top 100 hits of this week, then again I'll be off for one more week (with Saturday's rollout of my chart again). Thanks for hanging in there. Songoftheday will be back on September 9th with a rapper who is telephonically available.