The Black Album (Jay-Z album)
| The Black Album | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jay-Z's studio album | |||||||
|
Publication |
2003 |
||||||
| Label (s) | Roc-A-Fella , Def Jam | ||||||
|
Format (s) |
CD, LP |
||||||
|
Title (number) |
14th |
||||||
|
running time |
55:32 |
||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
The Black Album ( English for The Black Album is) the eighth studio album of American rapper Jay-Z . It was released on November 14, 2003 on the labels Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam . The music magazine Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 349 on its list of the 500 best albums of all time in 2012 .
Production and samples
Jay-Z himself and his business partners Damon Dash and Kareem Burke served as executive producers in the production of the album . Just Blaze produced the tracks Interlude , December 4th and Public Service Announcement (Interlude) . The instrumentals for Encore and Lucifer come from Kanye West , while The Neptunes created the beats for the songs Change Clothes and Allure . One production each comes from The Buchanans ( What More Can I Say ), Timbaland ( Dirt off Your Shoulder ), 9th Wonder ( Threat ), Rick Rubin ( 99 Problems ) and DJ Quik ( Justify My Thug ). Eminem also produced the song Moment of Clarity in collaboration with Luis Resto and the track My 1st Song is a co-production by Aqua and 3H.
Ten of the 14 tracks contain samples of songs by other artists. For example, elements of the song That's How Long by the vocal group The Chi-Lites are used on December 4th . What More Can I Say samples the song Something for Nothing by MFSB and contains sound clips from the film Gladiator . In Encore is a sample of the piece I Will include John Holt, whereas Change Clothes the track Change of Jay-Z himself and Pharrell Williams is sampling. 99 Problems contains elements from six different songs: Long Red by Mountain , Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9 by Wilson Pickett , The Big Beat by Billy Squier , 99 Problems by rapper Ice-T , Touched by UGK and Children's Story by Slick Rick . In addition, Threat samples the song A Woman's Threat by R. Kelly , while Public Service Announcement (Interlude) Samples contains the song Seed of Love by Little Boy Blues and No One Can Do It Better by The DOC . Justify My Thug samples Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, Rock Box by the rap group Run-DMC and Justify My Love by Madonna . Furthermore, elements of the song Chase the Devil by Max Romeo are used in Lucifer and My 1st Song contains excerpts from an interview by The Notorious BIG from 1996 and a sample of the song Tu y Tu Mirar… Yo y Mi Canción by the group Los Ángeles Negros .
Cover design
The album cover is black and dark gray. It shows Jay-Z, who puts a black baseball cap on his head with both hands. In the upper part of the picture are the lettering Jay-Z and The Black Album in white and gray respectively.
Guest Posts
| Professional reviews | |
|---|---|
| Reviews | |
| source | rating |
| laut.de |
 
|
| Juice |
|
| Rolling Stone |
|
| allmusic |
|
| RapReviews |
 
|
The only guest appearance on the album comes from the US singer and rapper Pharrell Williams , who can be heard in the song Change Clothes .
Track list
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Albums | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| # | title | Guest Posts | producer | length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interlude | Just Blaze | 1:22 | |
| 2 | December 4th | Just Blaze | 4:32 | |
| 3 | What More Can I Say | The Buchanans | 4:55 | |
| 4th | Encore | Kanye West | 4:11 | |
| 5 | Change clothes | Pharrell Williams | The Neptunes | 4:18 |
| 6th | Dirt off your shoulder | Timbaland | 4:05 | |
| 7th | Threat | 9th wonder | 4:05 | |
| 8th | Moment of clarity | Eminem and Luis Resto (Co) | 4:24 | |
| 9 | 99 problems | Rick Rubin | 3:55 | |
| 10 | Public Service Announcement (Interlude) | Just Blaze | 2:53 | |
| 11 | Justify My Thug | DJ Quik | 4:05 | |
| 12 | Lucifer | Kanye West | 3:12 | |
| 13 | Allure | The Neptunes | 4:52 | |
| 14th | My 1st song | Aqua and 3H | 4:45 |
Chart successes and singles
The Black Album reached number 47 in the German album charts and stayed in the top 100 for eight weeks. In the USA, the album entered the top position and was able to stay in the charts for 59 weeks, of which two weeks at number 1.
The songs Change Clothes , Dirt off Your Shoulder and 99 Problems were released as singles.
Sales figures and awards
For more than three million copies sold, The Black Album was awarded triple platinum in the USA . The album also went platinum in the UK for over 300,000 copies. Worldwide sales are around four million units.
At the Grammy Awards in 2005 was The Black Album in the category Best Rap Album nominated, but lost The College Dropout by Kanye West .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rolling Stone: The Black Album # 349
- ↑ Album cover on amazon.de
- ↑ Rating: laut.de
- ↑ Rating: Juice
- ↑ Rating: Rolling Stone ( Memento from April 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rating: allmusic.com
- ↑ Rating: RapReviews
- ↑ Chart sources: Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ RIAA : 3 × platinum in US
- ^ Platinum in UK
- ↑ Worldwide album sales on statisticbrain.com, July 11, 2015, English. Retrieved November 1, 2015.