If this isn't a bad EP , it isn't a great EP, and it its problem is easy to pinpoint: it is too short. * tracks, a song a night in theory, though probably all from the streamed last night, two with wife Beyonce. All the hits. none of the deep cuts, it is like a glimpse. It is even lazy.
One thing is for sure, Jigga was in great voice. Nerves might have made him less eloquent, but it didn't effect his ability to rap, and through 8 career spanning tracks, he flips and spits with eloquence and precision. The sort of stuff that makes him unmistakably the biggest hip hop in the world. When I saw him, he rampaged through several Reasonable Doubt tracks, but on the EP there is no "Brooklyn's Finest" and no "Dead Presidents". He goes no further back than "Gimme Some" and three of the eight tracks are off Blueprint 3.
I am not sure why that would be, but I promise you, three of the four are better than the recorded version. "Forever Young" improves vastly with the addition of Beyonce, "Empire State Of Mind" provides Jay-Z with absolute redemption with his best rap of the night and on the EP: he squelches his recorded version with an astounding fluidity.
On the video (8 videos are included), Jay-Z looks his age, his cheeks, always a little flabby, seem to bounce to the music now, and he looks out of condition, but he is also more human then we have seen him. And seen through wife Beyonce]s eyes, he is really attractive. She touches his shoulder in a n unscripted moment during "Crazy For You" and it is so tender and gentle, it is just very attractive. One night during his 8 night stint he took the train to Barclay's Center and to be quite honest, I was a little bit embarrassed to be a New Yorker. I've seen Arnold Scharzenegger walk through Central Parks and be totally ignored. I've seen JFK Jn. It is just too much an ordinary occurrence in nyc, we love among famous people. But Brooklyn lost it when Jay-Z decided to join us. It's hard to remain human when you can't live normally. So to see his normalcy is very charming.
The film itself is a little too batcave-y, like the show itself, it is a little too brooding for a celebration. But the music is great, the bests tuff I've heard from the guy in years. The rapping is magnificent. About as great as you will ever hear, and about as excellent as you can expect from any rapper of his stature. in a world of Auto-Tune and Pro-Tools, Jay-Z was magnificently in the moment.
I'm hoping he gets around to releasing the entire concert. It definitely deserves the preservation. With Live In Brooklyn, he joins his peers as a man who is better off playing oldies than recording newbies.
Grade: B+