Jay-Z
Unplugged
Def Jam

"Rakim is the Father, Biggie is the son, and Jay-Z's the Holy Ghost," said Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of the Roots in a recent issue of Rolling Stone. That's a heady compliment, but one that Jay-Z would probably take in stride. After all, he refers to himself as "God MC." He is a phenomenal success in rap music, to be sure; he's a platinum album sure thing, and he's becoming as prolific as Prince. Further, according to God MC, he writes down none of his lyrics, he just freestyles them all, and they stick. Reportedly, the entire Blueprint album, arguably his best, came to him in a two-day blizzard of inspiration.

But on the 7th day, God MC rested, and the result is Jay-Z Unplugged. This live recording for MTV's Unplugged series is an opportunity for the Creator to take a look at what he hath wrought. The Roots are Jay-Z's back-up band, and they have the most difficult job of the evening — trying to re-create the rich production of albums like The Dynasty Roc la Familia and Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life. We get pieces of "Hard Knock Life (The Ghetto Anthem)," "Ain't No" and "Can I Get A" that clock in at under two minutes; "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)" and "Song Cry" are performed in their entirety. There are 13 live cuts in all, and a negligible studio bauble hooked on at album's end, the "Her Majesty" of the album.

"Welcome to Jay-Z's poetry reading," says Jay-Z at the opening of the disc. But Jay-Z's poetry, at least in this instance, has less to do with his verbal dexterity than his uncanny sense of rhythm. He knows, better than almost any rapper out there, how to pace his way through a track, unleashing a flurry of ideas in the verses of "Jigga What, Jigga Who," sitting back conversationally in "Hard Knock Life" and gliding smoothly and arrogantly through the following insults, directed at his rival Nas, in "Takeover": "Four albums in ten years?/ I can divide/ That's one every, mmm, two years, two of them was doo/ One was hmmm, the other was Illmatic/ That's-a one hot album every 10 year average." Chuck D is still the champion when it comes to using words for effect; no one is better at giving each and every word explosiveness. Jay-Z is sometimes incomprehensible on Unplugged, but his flow is his trump card. Chuck D was more of a novelist, but when Jay-Z asks you to bounce with him, you bounce.

Still, Jay-Z's not always in great voice. He stumbles on lyrics and offers tired chorus chants in "Girls, Girls, Girls." It's not particularly exciting when a rapper sounds winded. And the opener, "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" is too lethargic to open an album. But he gets his game face on in the album's second half, offering strong readings of "Song Cry" and, particularly, "I Just Wanna Love U (Give it 2 Me)," the album's strongest track. And Jay-Z isn't interested in using the evening's acoustic platform to reinterpret his songs, the way Bob Dylan did with the band on the album Before the Flood (and the way LL Cool J did for MTV years ago). Perhaps that's the Achilles' heel of the rapper who makes up an album's worth of songs in a few days: restlessness. Freestylers are improvisationalists, and it's all about what's new, not what you did five years ago.

This leaves the musical examination to the Roots, and they are fantastic, particularly the percussion section, led by the great ?uestlove. The beats on "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)," "Big Pimpin'" and "Jigga that N****" are particularly strong, and Jaguar Wright turns in a great vocal performance throughout. She pretty much takes over "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)," tearing into the chorus refrain with abandon (on the broadcast, Jay-Z looks on in awe as she wails, and, in supplication, bows to her at the song's end). The Roots can't match the production dynamism of Jay-Z's albums; no band can. Listening to Jay-Z Unplugged, you realize how key sampling and production is to a great rap album. But this only makes the Roots' contribution here all the more impressive.

Jay-Z's studio albums are the best representation of his songwriting and MC skills. But even though his Unplugged peformance doesn't rank with the best of them — LL Cool J and Nirvana remain the standard-bearers — he still doesn't miss an opportunity to show off what may be the best flow in the business. He may be ragged here and there, the performances may be perfunctory, and the whole enterprise may only reach the heights of a studio album in a few spots, but this is God MC's Sabbath Day, after all. And He's looking back at all that He hath made, and the listener finds that it's good enough.

— Christopher Hickman (hickatz at mindspring dot com)