By Q The Question
Hip Hop Vibe Staff Writer
Everybody who follows the movement knows that SKE stands for Street Knowledge Entertainment. What Jay-Z spit on his Reasonable Doubt debut album was pure street knowledge and entertainment. Reasonable Doubt is the original hustler’s music and this is music for the people trying to get it.
Two months deep into this Hip Hop Classic of the Month, Reasonable Doubt was the choice because the seventeenth anniversary was this week. June 25, 1996, Jay-Z released his debut album and made people like yours truly look up to him. It all started with the “Dead Presidents” and the commercial single, “Ain’t No Nigga.”
Jay-Z offered one of the most-classic Mafioso albums ever with Reasonable Doubt, not many artists could pull off collaborations with Foxy Brown, The Notorious B.I.G., and Jaz-O at his peak. Reasonable Doubt had all of this and more. Songs like “Friend or Foe” still relate to the game today.
There are a lot of classic lines on this album, Jay-Z dropped jewels (get it?), among the most memorable is “Friend or Foe,” where he goes “you draw, better be Picasso, you know, the best.” Rappers are still getting it in, but nobody is spitting the way Jay-Z was in 1996, and probably nobody ever will. Then again, everything else in hip hop has come full circle, why not Mafioso rap? But, Reasonable Doubt is the Hip Hop Classic of the Month.
Watch the Reasonable Doubt documentary below:
Watch “Dead Presidents” by Jay-Z below:
Watch “Ain’t No Nigga” by Jay-Z ft. Foxy Brown below:
Watch “Can’t Knock The Hustle” by Jay-Z ft. Mary J. Blige below:
Watch “Feelin’ It” by Jay-Z ft. Mecca below:
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