Interesting Query: Where Would Jay Stand If He Truely Faded To Black???

epidemik the great

epidemik the great

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Was thinking about this a little earlier. What do you think the general census about Jay would be if he stopped rapping after The Black Album? Kingdom Come, American Gangster, BP3, WTT. I'm guessing the majority of his touring would stop, including this huge arena tour with JT and the wildly successful WTT tour with Ye. He would've never snagged that Number 1 hit that he got with Empire State of Mind. And overall, I feel like his general rep became widespread throughout these past few years. But where do you think he would stand right now, not only in the rap world, but also including his public persona?
 
It's irrelevant because it wouldn't have happened. The retirement thing was a transparent publicity stunt to generate hype and move units.

Smart business move too, that was his highest selling album other than Vol. 2.
 
DT43 said:
It's irrelevant because it wouldn't have happened. The retirement thing was a transparent publicity stunt to generate hype and move units.

Smart business move too, that was his highest selling album other than Vol. 2.
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His rep would actually be better amongst many. Too many people on here sing the "Every post Black Album album is terrible" song, so if he really quit cold turkey those albums wouldnt exist to bring him down in the eyes of those people. Plus with the crop of rappers that emerged or continued to rap post Black Album people would be demanding that he drop an album and come back like every other week since the state of rap is "terrible now".

One can easily make the argument that he did his legacy no favors by coming back after BA, I am not one of those people however. I agree with what the OP said, he gained a more widespread appeal and has put out some damn good albums since then.

To sum it up, hed be better off in the rap world, but overall he would be worse off.
 
Antidope said:
His rep would actually be better amongst many. Too many people on here sing the "Every post Black Album album is terrible" song, so if he really quit cold turkey those albums wouldnt exist to bring him down in the eyes of those people. Plus with the crop of rappers that emerged or continued to rap post Black Album people would be demanding that he drop an album and come back like every other week since the state of rap is "terrible now".

One can easily make the argument that he did his legacy no favors by coming back after BA, I am not one of those people however. I agree with what the OP said, he gained a more widespread appeal and has put out some damn good albums since then.

To sum it up, hed be better off in the rap world, but overall he would be worse off.
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THIS
 
A lot of people would lose the "KC, BP3, & WTT were weak" arguments. Anytime his ranking amongst the greats comes up, those albums are always brought up (I personally liked them, btw).

Even though everyone knew he was gonna come back at some point, if he did follow through with it, we would have never got American Gangster... I still feel that album is a top 5 Jay album.
 
I agree with OP and the others in this thread. Jay wouldn't have been able to solidify himself as a business "mogul" had he retired after BA. Think of all the different business ventures he was able to profit off of (Live Nation Deal, Brooklyn Nets, Sporting Agency, 2k Video Game, Movie Scores). His music & image became even more commercialized as his status transcended past just a hip-hop star; Jay became an icon. Hard to argue against those numbers. In addition, and others probably will disagree, Jay has remained relatively the most consistant in terms of album quality (minus KM imo). No, he's not going to be the same rapper from his Vol. / BP days ect. but who would be after what? 15-16? albums?
 
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Interested in hearing more thoughts.

And this is a "what if" scenario. We all knew he would come back, that's not the point.
 
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