Album du jour #3 - Jazz Just Does Understand (That Hilary is Hot)

DJ Jazzy Jeff's The Magnificient (2002)


Prior Relationship to Album: Big fan. I can't for the life of me recall how I decided to get a DJ Jazzy Jeff album. Like your average white kid, I would remember DJJJ for his Will Smith sidekick role and nothing else. But I got ahold of this album, which is a collection of collaborations with a host of lyricists and hip-hop artists (Chef Word, Pauly Yamz, Erro, J-Live, etc.), and I adored it! Jazzy Jeff is really quite skilled in the neo-soul "hep"-hop that is all kinds of smooth going down. It has been one of my more listened to albums since I stumbled across it.

High Point: The highest point might be Jazzy Jeff's scratch solo in #05's "Break it Down"....although it outshines the rest of the song. As far as songs go, it is a dead tie between #14 "A Charmed Life" - a super groovy, small jazz-club kind of moving bass line and accompaniment of a track that is impossible not to like - and #03 "For the Love of the Game", a great take on the typical "commercialism in hip-hop bad" song.

Low Point: #12, "Mystery Man" featuring the Last Emperor. BBOOORRRRRIIING. The lyrics are uninteresting, The Last Emperor is not nearly a good enough lyricist to even start to disguise that fact, and it just keeps going forever. After listening I was shocked to notice that it was the shortest track on the album. Felt like the longest by far.

What I Learned/Realized: His real name is Jeff Townes. He got Jill Scott started!! And there's an album called The Return of the Magnificient coming out this year!!!!!!

Future Relationship to Album: I will push it on my friends. Aside from being really good, I think it is one of those albums that is uniquely for white kids to have in their arsenal. I realized while listening that this album might well reside in the "sweet spot" in terms of being black enough to play during wooing/sex and feel way suaver than usual, while not edging into "so black I feel slightly threatened and/or sexually insufficient in front of my woman" territory.

To help explain what I mean, I decided to rank some black artists according to the extent to which they seem threatening to the average 30 year old Republican. The rankings are from 0.0 to 10, with 10 being the most threatening (I figured low scores should be good since the whitest sport is golf)

10 -Krucial from Crack Status Productions
8.2 - Young Jeezy
6.9 - Tupac's ghost
5.7 - 50 Cent
5.2 - Ice Cube
4.3 - Ice-T (Pre-Law & Order, 2.2 Post)
4.0 - Jurassic 5
3.2 - Outkast (Pre-Hey Ya, 1.3 Post)
3.0 - The Roots
2.2 - Michael Jackson (When still Black)
1.9 - Seal
0.5 - Chubby Checker
0.0 - Ray Charles
-1.0 - Humpty Hump (Nose looks jewish)
-4.0 - Sammy Davis Jr. (Actually is jewish)

I would rate this Jazzy Jeff album somewhere in the 4 territory - the lyrics come from unfamiliar black artists who are doing some form of "rapping", but wrapped in groovy/jazzy beats - which is the perfect spot for indie kids who are trying to use non-depressing mood music that has not had its sexiness potential devoured by irony. Hey, we gotta use what we can.