Looking back did Jay Z's hard knock life Volume 2 deserve 4.5 mics?

[987654321]

“They probably gon criticize the hook on this song/ like I give a fukk, I’m just a crook on this song”

 

[Tommy Gibbs]

The dumbing down of his lyrics started here. 3.5/5

I agree. I loved RD when it dropped. I didn't sleep like most of Jay Z's fanbase did. In my lifetime was a step down from RD, but still a dope album and better than HNL. The day I bought HNL(and many other albums that day), I listened to it and thought, "wtf is this?". It was and still is Jay's highest selling single, but I didn't get it. I thought it was 3.5 at best. Not a wack album by any means, but not something that should be mentioned as a classic.

I was driving the other day listening to Rock the Bells on Serius Radio and I finally realized why people have been calling Jay Z wack for so many years. I didn't understand that either because he's always been a dope MC. A lot of Lil Wayne fans(prior to this superbowl shyt) were always saying that Jay Z's music is garbage and fans of southern/west coast hip hop too. "Can I get a" came on the radio and I just let the station stay there listening to it reminding me how much I've always hated this song. Then I had that eureka moment. I thought back to being in the military discussing music with my homies from the south and many of them had never heard of Jay Z(and this was after his 2nd album). They missed the whole RD era and remixes he had with Shai, horace brown, and SWV in 96. They missed his bad attempt at a Bad Boy sound in 97 that overshadowed hot songs like "imaginary player", "a million and one questions", and "rap game/crack game". Their introduction to Jay Z was "hard knock life". At that point I was wondering if states like Louisiana, Florida, and Texas had BET to watch Rap City or hip hop magazines because many of them had no idea who Jay Z was. Even Manny Fresh said Baby had never heard of Jay Z when the "ha remix" was done. So I figured out that their intro to Jay Z was Hard knock life and bullshyt like "money cash hoes", "can I get a" and his commercial shyt. They wren't buying his albums and missed the b-sides.

 

[BigMan]

Classic cor me one of my favorite jayz albums

 

[987654321]

And mixing is perfect. There are way worse Jay albums than this, classic album from a classic moment in time

 

[Escobar305]

Personal favorite album for hov

 

[threattonature]

I agree. I loved RD when it dropped. I didn't sleep like most of Jay Z's fanbase did. In my lifetime was a step down from RD, but still a dope album and better than HNL. The day I bought HNL(and many other albums that day), I listened to it and thought, "wtf is this?". It was and still is Jay's highest selling single, but I didn't get it. I thought it was 3.5 at best. Not a wack album by any means, but not something that should be mentioned as a classic.

I was driving the other day listening to Rock the Bells on Serius Radio and I finally realized why people have been calling Jay Z wack for so many years. I didn't understand that either because he's always been a dope MC. A lot of Lil Wayne fans(prior to this superbowl shyt) were always saying that Jay Z's music is garbage and fans of southern/west coast hip hop too. "Can I get a" came on the radio and I just let the station stay there listening to it reminding me how much I've always hated this song. Then I had that eureka moment. I thought back to being in the military discussing music with my homies from the south and many of them had never heard of Jay Z(and this was after his 2nd album). They missed the whole RD era and remixes he had with Shai, horace brown, and SWV in 96. They missed his bad attempt at a Bad Boy sound in 97 that overshadowed hot songs like "imaginary player", "a million and one questions", and "rap game/crack game". Their introduction to Jay Z was "hard knock life". At that point I was wondering if states like Louisiana, Florida, and Texas had BET to watch Rap City or hip hop magazines because many of them had no idea who Jay Z was. Even Manny Fresh said Baby had never heard of Jay Z when the "ha remix" was done. So I figured out that their intro to Jay Z was Hard knock life and bullshyt like "money cash hoes", "can I get a" and his commercial shyt. They wren't buying his albums and missed the b-sides.

For me Jay came off like another generic street rapper following trends on Reasonable Doubt. Since at that time it seemed like every rapper that dropped was on that kingpin shyt. It wasn't until I heard Where I'm From/Streets Is Watching that it hit me that dude might be different. Checked the album and hearing You Must Love Me blew my mind. That level of storytelling was some next level shyt for me. Then Money Ain't a Thing, and It's LIke That (I had originally heard it on Capri's album) and then me buying the Streets Is Watching VHS turned me into a stan. When Volume 2 dropped, between this and Aquemini I didn't listen to shyt else for months until this cat at school was shocked I hadn't heard Reasonable Doubt. He told me Jay was even better on there. So I copped that and it was on repeat after that.

 

[Cladyclad]

Lowkey this album was created like it was in tge streaming era

3 singles before the album came out. All on other projects. So when people say the title track blew him up i call cap. Dude was on fire before that song. The album was number 1 for a couple weeks before HKL was released.

Album is certified classic

 

[BUSINESS AS USUAL]

Nope shyt dirt imo

 

[BUSINESS AS USUAL]

It’s the best volume front to back if we being honest. It doesn’t have the lows that are on vol3 and vol1. Collection of great singles and classic collabs.

Gtfoh

 

[SunZoo]

Give a fukk what you rate it, in real fukking time that shyt was everywhere, you couldn’t escape it

Classic as far as I’m concerned, off impact…it had its own moment.

 

[EastsideRio]

Jadakiss's debut was loaded with the same format. It had super producers all over the album. It had all these attempts at radio. There were songs that pandered to every region. Fabolous's albums were pretty much the same. Fabolous's albums all had production from Timbaland, The Neptunes, Just Blaze, Kanye West, Jermaine Dupri, Irv Gotti, Swizz Beatz.

Not mad at that take, but after Bad Boy I don’t think Jadakiss was going after a commercial hits filled album

 

[JustCKing]

Not mad at that take, but after Bad Boy I don’t think Jadakiss was going after a commercial hits filled album

Most suprising with Jada is that he had a song featuring Carl Thomas. Carl Thomas was still signed to Bad Boy at the time. "Nasty Girl" was the song and it might be the only song on the album with no profanity. It wasn't a single, but it could've worked.

 

[murksiderock]

It's a classic but Vol 1 is better!

 

[JQ Legend]

Vol. 2 is 4 at best.

The Dynasty Roc La Familia deserved it's 4.5

The Source gave Kingdom Come 4.5 mics too which should have been 3/5.

Nah Kingdom Come was dope, shoulda got 5

And HKL was def a 5 mic album

Me personally I consider all Hov albums from RD-BP3 classics except BP2 and that was only because of too many tracks. The best 12-14 tracks being the album with one of the throwaway tracks (People Talkin) woulda made BP2 possibly Hov best album

Nah, Dynasty had wayyyy too much filler. Them basic ass Rick Rock beats and Guilty Until Proven Innocent drag it down. I'd leave in Squeeze First cuz those are some of Jay's best verses and MAYBE Parkin Lot Pimpin, but you drop the other three then I'd say it deserves 4-4.5

Parkin Lot Pimpin One of my favorite Hov songs ever

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Not mad at that take, but after Bad Boy I don’t think Jadakiss was going after a commercial hits filled album

Nah, his first two had blatant commercial bait...Kiss of Death just did it a little better.