Hip Hop Vibe’s Hottest MC in the Game is Jay-Z

This year has been a year of revival for hip hop. Over the years, the game had become watered-down and stagnant. Every rapper was trying to do the same thing. In the midst of all of this, Jay-Z had silently taken a break from rap. This time of year is usually headlined by a new album from Jay-Z. For the first time since his retirement, Jay-Z failed to release an album.

Throughout the year, new music had come from various rappers, but still none of it was Jay-Z. Almost every rapper that released an album this year paid homage to Jay. That, alone, shows how much of a legend that Jay-Z is. Even with no album coming, he was still the talk of the hip hop community.

Right before the release of “Death of Auto-tune,” every song that came out was auto-tune filled. Ghostface Killah even went as far as to say that the Jay-Z single hurt his album sales because most of his tracks were filled with auto-tune tracks. The return of Jay-Z also ended the reign of Ron Browz. His auto-tune tracks dominated early on this year.

However, all Jay-Z did was release one song that did not even crack the top twenty and the entire hip hop community stopped co-signing the auto-tune. When The Blueprint 3 came out, Jay also had the highest-selling hip hop album of 2009. Then, his “Empire State of Mind” single became his first song to top the Billboard Hot 100.

It has been five weeks since “Empire State of Mind” reached number one and that is where it still remains. Not only does Jay-Z have the album of the year from a critical and commercial standpoint, he also has the single of the year. The fact that Eminem had been gone for five years and returned with a platinum album was still overshadowed by Jay-Z.

That is the reason that Jay-Z is the hottest emcee in the game. All he did was release new music, nothing extra, and he was already back and stronger than he had ever been before. Meanwhile his foes are all falling off as these words are written.