“On September 7th, one day before the release of Jay-Z’s ‘The Blueprint 3,’ Brooklyn’s DJ Ayres released ‘D.O.J.: When Jay-Z Was Good,’ a collection of thirty-four Jay-Z songs. The title of the mixtape expresses a clear opinion of ‘Blueprint 3,’ and Ayres expands in the brief text of the post: ‘He sounds like he’s coasting along, so I wanted to go back and pull out a bunch of his music that made you bob your head, marvel at his flow, puff out your chest, or even raise the little hairs on the back of your neck…. Not included: #1 singles you’ve heard a million times, lazy one-take flows, lyrics about inventing the button-down shirt, songs dissing rappers who would later be signed to Jay-Z’s label, and songs produced by Eminem.’ The selection is spot-on, though there are at least three other mixtapes of the same length that would live up to Ayres’ title without duplicating a single track.”
Excerpted from Sasha Frere-Jones’ “Goalposting” at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/10/recommended-listening.html
