Serious Jay-Z fans: Disperse. Nothing to see here. This collection, the first proper North American best-of in Jay-Z's career, is what it says it is: a compendium of his most successful songs. Or, it seems that way at first. There's some mixed messaging. Of the 14 songs here, six were recorded post-retirement. Only two were released before 2000: 1998's "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" and 1999's "Big Pimpin'". Jay's first two albums, 1996's crucial Reasonable Doubt and its 1997 follow-up, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, are not represented. Three songs included here failed to reach the top quarter of Billboard's Hot 100 chart ("Public Service Announcement [Interlude]", "Encore", and surprisingly, "99 Problems"), each of which originated with 2003's faux swan song, The Black Album. Though they're recognized fan favorites that feature emblematic moments in Jay's career, there have been bigger hits.
"Change Clothes", "Girls, Girls, Girls", "Excuse Me Miss", and the recent "Young Forever"-- all of which charted higher than the above and 2009's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)", also included-- are absent. "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", by most reasonable metrics, is a worse song than "Girls, Girls, Girls". But "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" went all the way to #4, so that couldn't go. But then, none of this logic matters. Last year, when Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" became his first #1 single, he finally qualified for a hits package like this-- one that skews toward casual fans more than completists.
It's fitting, because these days Jay-Z is expanding, more than usual, by opening his world to the casual fan. The recent release of his memoir/lyric anthology, Decoded, prompted several high-profile interviews, including trips to NPR's "Fresh Air", "The Daily Show", "Oprah", "Charlie Rose", and a formal conversation with Cornel West at the New York Public Library. During these interviews, he was repeatedly asked about things the book explains that longtime followers already know: his youth in the Marcy projects, the art of hustling, his complicated relationship to misogyny, President Obama. Just last week, I listened to him explain the punning kicker on the second verse of "99 Problems" at least five times.
Jay was savvy and wry as ever, but these were mostly facile conversations-- though hearing "Fresh Air"'s Terry Gross press him on whether or not he stabbed alleged bootlegger and former friend Lance "Un" Rivera, a topic long danced around by music journalists, was genuinely thrilling. But they were necessary trips through yet another turnstile for Jay-Z, into the homes of more people who only vaguely understood his craft. Now, hundreds, maybe thousands of housewives, know what "the work" is to a drug dealer. And now Jay-Z carries a literary badge, continuing to deftly legitimize his art to the unsuspecting. Rap has been big business for nearly two decades, but the genre's rise to respectability has been slower and more arduous. The Decoded media tour has done much to advance rap in theory, while quietly boring ardent followers.
Hits Collection is no different. Regardless of the methodology between the song selections, many will scoff at Kingdom Come's "Show Me What Ya Got", best remembered as a beer commercial, and the three additions from last year's The Blueprint 3. That album was dismissed as harshly by loyalists as it was embraced by moderates-- neither were right, but the inclusion of "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)", "Empire", and the event-like but mediocre "Run This Town" instead of "Can't Knock the Hustle" or "Ain't No Nigga" feels like a case of selective memory. Those songs don't happen without what came first; sometimes Hits aren't the same as hits. One trip to a Jay-Z concert proves as much-- there's no sure bet that "'03 Bonnie and Clyde" will performed, but you can almost always count on "Where I'm From", a fierce longtime live staple from Vol. 1. It didn't chart, and it's not included.
There is a carrot for hardcore fans. A press release for Hits Collection calls the five songs included on the Deluxe Edition's bonus disc "impossible-to-find," which is only true if you've never heard of Mediafire. The extras are interestingly curated, though. A freestyle over onetime consort Big Daddy Kane's "Young, Gifted and Black" marks a nod to the past-- it first appeared on the excellent S. Carter Collection Mixtape, released as a promotional bonus when Jay's Reebok sneaker was issued. From that same mixtape comes "Pump It Up (Freestyle)", a self-mythologizing flurry that effectively ended Joe Budden's chance at big-time rap stardom in 117 seconds. "My President is Black (Remix)" is a nod to Progressive Hov, visitor of White Houses and Bono hobnobber. DJ Khaled's "Go Hard (Remix)" is the strangest choice: It's a virtuosic verse on a titanic song, but lacks meaning. The final song is the underrated and little-heard "This Life Forever", first released on the soundtrack for the film adaptation of Donald Goines' crime saga Black Gangster. The movie was actually never made, but the song has become the Ark of the Covenant for Jay-Z diehards-- Jay also annotates it in Decoded, despite its low profile.
That last track especially feels a concession to those who waded through the hits, and a revealing entry point for casual fans approaching the bonus disc. Still, where Jay-Z's albums are typically shaded and complex works buttressed by commercial extravagance, this collection is something of an inversion. Opening with "P.S.A." and closing with "This Life Forever" is a subtle but resonant message: Are you still down?
