Today's song comes from rapper Jay-Z, whose first purported "retirement" release The Black Album had scored a pair of top ten hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Change Clothes" and "Dirt On Your Shoulder", a big feat for a hip-hop artist with "street" appeal since the days of G-funk. Between those two hits the album track "What More Can I Say" got enough airplay to make Billboard's R&B Singles chart, and after the latter at the start of 2004 the Kanye West-assisted song "Encore" made the R&B top-40 at #30, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #106. ("Encore" will be in this series by way of its revamped "mash-up" with Linkin Park).
The third and final promoted single from The Black Album was "99 Problems". The track had a long writing credits list, not only with Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter himself and producer Rick Rubin being joined by the writers of the several samples on it: "Long Red" by the southern rock band Mountain (Lesley West, Felix Pappalardi, John Ventura, Norman Landsberg) and Billy Squier's debut album single "The Big Beat", as well as interpolating Ice-T's "99 Problems" (though Ice isn't listed in the credits). The lyrics on their surface are about Jay's troubles in a myriad of aspects. The first verse goes quickly for his rivals who wish him hard to the music critics and more importantly the industry media that try to blackmail him for access, withholding coverage or airplay if he doesn't play their rules. But it's the second verse, which he claims stemmed from a true story, had Jay-Z stopped by the police and outwitted them into not being able to search his car for drugs. The third gets more graphic as he compares his rivals to "hoes", and saying he knows how to carry his own. The production from Rubin is pure rock crunch not heard in mainstream since the days of Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys, and may have turned off some urban radio stations unnecessarily. But nevertheless, hype around the song caused enough sales of the 12" vinyl single to place it on the Hot 100...
"99 Problems" became the third top-40 hit from The Black Album on Billboard's Hot 100 in June of 2004, though lack of radio or a CD Single hindered it from spending much time there, while making it to #26 on Billboard's R&B chart and #10 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, it spent three weeks on the Mainstream Top-40 chart with a high of #37, rose to #17 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop airplay list, and got to #13 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single peaked at #12 in the United Kingdom (as a two-fer single with "Dirt On Your Shoulder") and #23 in Ireland. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, "99 Problems" won for Best Male Rap Solo Performance, and also was nominated for Best Rap Song, losing to Kanye West for "Jesus Walks".
Jay-Z will be back to the series.
(10/10)
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Here's Jay-Z at the BET Awards in 2004, which unfortunately has cretin Kid Rock...
Next up at a BBC show in 2009...
and lastly, at Rock Am Ring in 2010...
Up tomorrow, a colorful rock band heads down the seaside street.
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