mixtape maestro

After letting Jigga’s A-list-assisted “Run This Town” marinate in our brains for nearly a month now, and after finally seeing the entirety of it’s long-teased, “What in the ‘California Love’/ ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ Hell?”-themed accompanying video clip, we have now decided to officially stick with our initial reaction of the record: It’s…just…okay.

Since busting out of his retirement all those years ago, Jay has built a steadily growing catalogue of records (both as lead and as guest star) that puff up a lot of hype simply via his attached name, but just as soon fail to merit much long-lasting appeal beyond their highly-anticipated release. We should have gotten used to this anti-climactic routine long ago, but what can we say, he’s arguably the G (Living Emcee). O. A. T. and we long to hear him justify that honor over and over.

More so than a lot of other material in recent memory though, high hopes had fallen on “Run This Town” (who could deny that exciting title, or the sheer collective weight of the top-of-the-game artists upon it?), so it’s only more of a shame that, in the end, it lands as just another meh notch in Jay’s increasingly dissapointing belt.

Atop producers Kanye and No I.D.’s dramatically buzzing electric guitar sting and heavy-thudding drum march rumble, Jay and Ri-Ri commit performances that remain boringly on par with their previously well-established artistic angles. His raps are admittedly slick but carrying little “hip hop head” value, offering more eye-roll-inducing references to his bulging bank account and knowledge of high fashion folk; she continues to be the fiercest dead-eyed yodeller around in a chorus that feels twice as long with all of it’s non-catchy, street-anthem self-seriousness.

Kanye is the only one to really make this cut worthwhile, which comes as no surprise given the fact that well…he’s Kanye, and that he’s proven to be good at making these joyless, un-dance-able hip hop arrangements crackle like any other major Hot 97 banger in the past (remember “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”?). His ending verse overflows with the wit and imagination severely lacking everywhere else here, from the opening “Joe Blow/ no homo” couplet on down, which, in our heads, brings about many burning questions, like:

A) Wouldn’t it have been smarter if his verse have been placed second, to help keep cats from switching this one off early, as we assume most have by now since “Town” began infiltrating radio?

B) After hearing West’s portion, didn’t Jay feel a need to upgrade his own parts?

C) Why couldn’t Kanye have just kept this one for himself, given us an added entertaining verse and just reduced Jigga’s role to a single sixteen?

Like everyone else, we’ll still be first in line (or, more likely in 2009, on-line) to cop The Blueprint 3 when it arrives (besides, we can’t miss that Drake feature!!!), but, and we SWEAR by this, if this ends up another “one-listen-than-quit-and-wait-for-all-the-other-rappers-to-rock-it’s-instrumentals-right” affair, we’ll have to…have to…hell, sit around and wait for the next Jay-Z project to drop so we can get all overly excited all over again. Damn you Jay!!!

Pre-order Blueprint 3 here.