American Gangster >>>>>>>> Kingdom ComeNick Sylvester hit upon it first re: American Gangster, but surrously: as much as I love this record, there is something a bit bizarro about H.O.V.A. using Ridley Scott's Frank Lucas biopic (trailer) has an excuse to pull the ol' chin scratch-flashback wavies "oh yeah, now I remember" and reminisce about his hardscrabble youth as a dope dealer back in Bed-Stuy's Marcy housing projects. Because of the movie tie-in aspect, AG is being pitched as some kind of concept album; a what-if if Jay had remained in the drug trade instead of, well, becoming Jay. How this would be thematically different than say, Reasonable Doubt, or pretty much any coke rap album ever is attributable to the fact that AG is being pitched as deliberately hindsight; we all know that nowadays Hov is a corporate honcho, not a businessman but a "business, man" pitching for Bud, HP, Rocawear and, synergistically enough, American Gangster: The Movie. Still, unless you think that shareholder meetings and brand strategy development are interesting fodder for rap music, the man needed a window into a world that used to be his and isn't any longer in order to remain relevant - in hip hop, form dictates function more often than not. AG: The Album is meta beyond meta: drug dealer turned rapper turned C.E.O. creating a record based on a movie about a drug dealer. The audience is being bought and sold on levels they don't even know about; Jay-Z remains the hustle.
