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This song is a classic for so many reasons - Jay’s flowing his ass off and UGK’s Bun B is in overdrive as he flosses with literary aplomb. This has produced some great music, but none more classic than “Big Pimpin’,” Jay’s unrepentant lothario anthem featuring the Port Arther, Texas, luminaries UGK. “Big Pimpin'”Īs both a rapper and a marketer, Jay Z’s always had a knack for collaborating with hot regional rappers, and helping bring them shine in New York while ingratiating himself on that artist’s turf. With Jay playing both himself and the cop, it’s as tense, pulpy and funny as a good crime novel. Then there’s the track’s second verse, a narrative of racial profiling driving the cops to pull over a dealer who’s got something to hide, where Jay uses his smarts to pimp the system, killing time before the cops can call in the drug dogs.
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Jay Z lured Rick Rubin, one of the genre’s original architects, back into the realm of rap production for a slamming beat that rivaled his work with LL Cool J or the Beastie Boys. But seriously, this is the way you make your mark in hip-hop. Speaking of UGK, it’s Bun B’s part on “Touched” that Jay’s quoting in the third verse of this track. We took the liberty of assembling a list of Jay’s 20 best songs, so you never, ever forget that Jay Z is one of the greatest of all time. When it’s a given that you’re the best, though, people often don’t take the time to examine why you’re the best, especially when you’ve got a catalog as deep and varied as Hov’s. For many rap fans, there’s never been a world where Jay Z was anything but a monolithic figure within hip-hop, whose image and ideals functioned as shorthand for the very genre itself. And it’s the constantly shifting nature of these personas - the revolutionary, capitalist and revolutionary capitalist who’ll scream out “money ain’t a thing” then do a song with out-and-out Marxists dead prez - that makes Jay Z such a fascinating character.Īt this point, the Brooklyn rapper, who has won nearly two dozen Grammy Awards, has been around so long it’s easy to take him for granted. Reading: Jay-Z songs: 20 best tracks of all timeīut Jay would probably argue that his own duality is a commentary as well - the fact that poverty drove him to sell drugs in the first place and he still feels the impulse to do whatever he can to distance himself from that means something is wrong with America.