Editor’s Note: Where I turn on MTV Classic and review the first video I see
Yo! Hip Hop Mix is on and a Rakim song is going on, this won’t be reviewed first full video. This is an awful video, but Rakim is an amazing rapper. It’s a Rakim song called “Guess Who’s Back”
Jay-Z/”Dirt Off Your Shoulder”
Jay off the bat tells us we are now tuned into the fucking greatest! He’s fine, but I think terribly over-rated. We get a close up of some shiny rims and Jay and a bunch of other dudes get out of their massive SUVs and walk into some building. It looks like they are in some sort of radio station and his posse starts ejecting people from their broadcasting locations.
But everyone is happy he’s here and they can be seen dancing some and Jay is rapping in a booth and Damon Dash (I’m pretty sure) is just being shown gratuitously in the video cause he’s Jay’s homie and like the label head or something.
Now we see the music (through a laughably bad graphic) going out to the city and there some hispanic folks arguing at a barber shop and some dudes who were getting harassed by the police but they brush off their shoulders and magically they are ok or something. This is an awful video and the song isn’t good either, sorry.
It’s later and Jay isn’t at the radio station it’s nighttime and he’s in the backseat of a car in a parking garage and also in a congested city location with a ton of SUVs and other expensive cars blocking the road. Again, just stupid.
Definitely a ton of hot black chicks in this video though, easily the highlight. Jay snaps his fingers and the lights go out in the city and he and the hoes are now in infrared and he’s rapping by the congested car area I mentioned earlier? Questlove is briefly in the video, maybe Beyonce? I don’t even care, this video and song are just fucking boring. Again, I don’t get this guys appeal.
It’s morning, he gets back in his car and there is an orange sunset. That’s it.
Woof, this was just bad. Not funny bad like some of the other videos I’ve reviewed just plain bad. This song sucks too. Timbaland does the beat. He’s got some good stuff but this is just derivative of some of his better shit and I think he’s highly over-rated as well.
It’s interesting that Rakim was on before this lackluster snooze fest from Jay-Z. He’s way more talented as a rapper and has a much better catalog of music than Jay but probably not 1/10th the fanbase. That’s how shit works out a lot of times in the music biz.