If Hip Hop Is A Young Man's Game, Then Jay Z Just Changed The Rules With '4:44'

Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter has achieved the improbable with his comeback, 4:44. He's reformulated 'dad rap', giving it intergenerational cool. 

Pithy at just under 40 minutes, 4:44 is presented with the kind of weird statement artwork Carter's protege Kanye West might commission. But, with his 13th solo album, the MC explores themes of fidelity, family and fortune through the prism of black American experience. It's Hova's most revelatory – and mature – work. 4:44 is authoritative, empowering and woke. Nonetheless, Carter also disses everyone from Yeezy to Prince's estate to the elusive "Becky with the good hair" tormenting his wife Beyonce Knowles. We may need a second volume of Decoded.

Truthfully, few hip hop heads expected the Brooklynite to deliver another 'major event' album. Carter threatened to quit rapping as early as 1996's debut Reasonable Doubt to focus on empire-building. In recent years, he's seemed content to play the entrepreneur – and family man. For millennials, this fortysomething is famous as Mr Knowles. Carter could easily hang out with his pal Barack Obama at the beach. But, in 2016 Queen Bey dropped LEMONADE, chronicling the discord in her marriage following Carter's (supposed) infidelity. Ever since, popdom has been anticipating his response. Anyway, he can't retire. Carter presides over TIDAL – the artist-owned subscription streaming portal – and he remains its marquee rapper. Soz, Ye.

Though Carter and Knowles duetted on 2002's '03 Bonnie & Clyde, they later fought to keep their marriage secret. As such, cynics have suggested that the dramz engendered by LEMONADE and now 4:44 is all opportunistic marketing. But Carter has openly built a career, and brand, by commodifying his struggles. That is the transformative power of hip hop. Besides, as Carter raps on 4:44's Kill Jay Z, "You can't heal what you never reveal."

"Symbolically, he rejects the unhyphenated version of his alias."

Ironically, with 4:44, Carter mines similar topics, and sonic tropes, as his old nemesis Nas on his past three conceptual albums – including 2012's Life Is Good. Like Nas, Carter has never aired a wack album. His sophomore, In My Lifetime, Vol 1, was dissed for Puff Daddy's pop hooks (The City Is Mine, featuring BLACKstreet, jacking Glenn Frey), but today sounds nostalgically cred. Still, Carter has had disappointing albums. The overblown Kingdom Come saw him contentiously collaborate with Coldplay's Chris Martin on Beach Chair – braggadocios existentialism. Again, Carter's last outing, 2013's Magna Carta Holy Grail, faltered with empty conviction. However, 4:44 is restorative. This time Carter has, unusually, liaised with a sole producer in No ID. The fabled Chicago beatmaker came up with Common, only to mentor a young Yeezy.

4:44 isn't a consciously modish – or avant – album like, say, Vince Staples' Big Fish Theory. It has no trap bangers. Instead Carter returns to the classicism of 2001's definitive The Blueprint – its template forged by West and Just Blaze out of vintage soul and funk samples. Yet 4:44 bares a careworn, and sombre, take on peak boom-bap. 

The few guests are lowkey – being Knowles, old Hov ally Frank Ocean, and Damian Marley, fresh off his appearance on Katy Perry's Chained To The Rhythm. And they are occasionally indistinguishable from the sampled vocalists. Indeed, 4:44 is all about Carter's lyrics – and, here, he's especially incisive and poetic.

4:44 launches with the dense Kill Jay Z – Carter reviewing his life and mythos. Symbolically, he rejects the unhyphenated version of his alias. The MC admits to his estrangement from Yeezy – the Watch The Throne pair now engaged in a game of moans. Significantly, Carter confesses to betraying Knowles, lamenting to himself, "You almost went Eric Benet/Let the baddest girl in the world get away." Kill… is 4:44's most tripped-out track, No ID repurposing The Alan Parsons Project's '70s prog Don't Let It Show. 

In contrast to LEMONADE, 4:44 is discursive rather than narrative. Carter directly riffs off Knowles' opus with 4:44's gospel-laden titular track – penned at… 4:44am. It's even more self-probing, and emotive, than his old classics like You Must Love Me and Song Cry. Carter acknowledges wounding Knowles with his womanising, apologising publicly. "Not meant to cry and die alone in these mansions," he raps. "Or sleep with our back turned." Carter may be shunning his old hyper-masculinity, too: he worries how his daughter, and heir, Blue Ivy, will regard him (she 'guests' on the finale Legacy).

He lambasts Prince's estate, singling out lawyer Londell McMillan for exploiting him in death."

More uplifting is Smile, in which Carter heralds his mother Gloria Carter coming out as a lesbian – and claiming her sexual freedom – over Stevie Wonder's Love's In Need Of Love Today. He extols, "Cried tears of joy when you fell in love/Don't matter to me if it's a him or her/I just wanna see you smile through all the hate/Marie Antoinette, baby, let 'em eat cake."

Elsewhere, Carter ruminates on his legacy as both a black artiste and capitalist. Shockingly, in Caught Their Eyes (with Ocean), he lambasts Prince's estate, singling out lawyer Londell McMillan for exploiting him in death. Carter addresses hip hop's generational divide in the Knowles-blessed Family Feud – with its petty squabbles over the kids' image and attire. Mostly, he flosses about generating wealth and heading a dynasty. Alas, Carter does err. In the Nina Simone-sampling The Story Of O.J., he offers dangerous anti-Semitism: "You wanna know what's more important than throwin' away money at a strip club? Credit/You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America?/This how they did it." 

4:44 winds down with the prerequisite retelling of Carter's origin story in Marcy Me – how, growing up in the impoverished Marcy Projects, he dealt drugs before disavowing street lyfe to become a rap hustler supremo. Rock has long had artists who trade in an eternal 'cool', from Bob Dylan to Mick Jagger to Patti Smith. But, until lately, hip hop was always perceived as a youngster's game. Carter just changed the rules.

No 4:44 opinion counts yet--it's not even 12 hrs yet. Maybe a week from now. Reading lyrics on @genius--it's gonna take 4ever to peel layers

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) June 30, 2017

4:44. WOW. MASTER TEACHER.

— Kendrick Lamar (@kendricklamar) June 30, 2017

One of the best albums ive heard from Jay. Incredibly honest and forward. Educational n perfect for the culture of today https://t.co/SG2FnZMrPz

— Young ANGEL (@AngelHaze) July 4, 2017