American Gangster is lyrically better than every Jay or Nas album., and it's more consistent song to song than any of them.
There's literally not a dip in song quality across the entire project, Reasonable Doubt my wane a little on Ain't No Jigga and Cashmere Thought's.
It's easily has his most advanced lyricism, i'm talking multi's, i'm talking internals, i'm talking metaphors, i'm talking similes, i'm talking entendre's, i'm talking just general song writing ability.
Nas has a very simple skill-set as an MC, and that's storytelling and multi-syllabic rhyming, with an over-reliance on similes, while Jay not only has that (absolutely's insane internals), and has it in spades as his more laid back flow can lead to people missing missing how many bars he can carry a rhyme across and in how many words within the bars, but as listed above he does it with simply more intelligent rapping.
Apart of the reason he does this so well is, well his flow, he doesn't just go over a track and spit non stop until you get the chorus and do it again with a forceful voice in a way that leads to every bar being more pronounced, he'll give you pauses and switch his voice up to add a visceral descriptiveness to the bars.
A perfect example of that is on Fallin where he pauses and raises his voice up and down to get across to you the exercises he's spitting (with a perfect use of the chorus on both this verse and the second verse as starting point's for the "falling" wordplay) :
"(Fallin') And you can't get up
All you do is push-up, pull-up, sit-up"
Or take "Sweet" for example:
"So I make no apologies, crooked policies
So a G a nigga gotta be
We playing for property no Monopoly
So I'll pass go and let my nephew follow me
They say the child shall lead
So I take it far as I can and then we shall see
Shall we dance with the devil for a beat
I pray to God I ain't got two left feet
Do the hustle put ki's in the street
Then I'm ballroom dancing
Ke-ke'in in the suite
Sweet BB's on the feet
TV's in the seat, ene-mies on the creep
It's so corrupt
Soak it up it's a lesson
Every fuck up
One day you're up
Next day you're down
Long as you stay the same it'll come back around"
Perfect interpolation of the songs title into the verse in multiples bars (he does the same in the first versez using Sweet as an intro to the track and making it sound pleasurable, only to follow up with " and still there's pain" with snaps you into what the track is really about, which is also a follow up on the previous track Roc Boys where you can hear Jay saying 'Sweet' on the outro, only to show the eventual fall out of the high life on the next track)
But to the main point, on this verse you have the bolded, which is just amazing, how in a few bars Jay's able to build up an effective metaphor that doesn't just work as an effective metaphor, but works as a story in and of itself, that self references back to track one "Pray".
He says "Shall we dance with the devil for a beat", which is already a known phrase, but he uses beat which can mean a period of time, or something like a police officers beat, and for the song as he's a rapper an actual beat, and is essentially saying his dance with the devil is his time as a dealer.
And then he continues the metaphor with "I pray to God I ain't go to left feet", which would mean he's incapable of dancing or in this case succeeding in the game.
His usage of praying to God not only means the general phrase which might not mean you're actually praying, but references back to the end of verse two on Pray where in the final line he prays to God for his endeavors in criminal activities, AND, he's praying to God for help in his dance with the Devil which shows the contradiction, and the two sides to this life which is at the heart of Sweet.
Then he continues the metaphor with The Hustle, a dance that originated among Puerto Ricans in the Bronx and used at house parties, something that a "street", young, unsophisticated, "low class" Jay Z would use, to double as a metaphor for hustling as in drugs putting ki's in the street (does the ki usage also double as in piano keys as in music for the dancing? I dunno), and now suddenly he's moved up from that "low" dancing, and low level hustling, as he's ballroom dancing, as he's above those "regular" dances, and as he's above that dancing he's not dealing in the streets now, he's hiding drugs in suites (that's what Ke Ke is to do), and he's ke ke'ing (which means to giggle) at the success he's had.
And that's not even the half of anything on that one track, let alone the entire album which is filled with gems, and incredible internals/multis like on the title track, which he manages to do with more metaphors,punchlines, and just general cleverness and great songwriting :
"I'm from the 80's
Home of the heroin
Era of the hustlers
The world is my custy
New Rich Porter
The way I flip quarters
Front on all these other rap artists, but me
Momma was a mink wearer
Papa ran numbers
So it's plain to see where my whole plan come from
American dream
I'm living the life still
The way I shine is like a zillion dollar light bill
Still I'm grinding, army jacket lining
Forty below Timbs on, getting my M's on
My best friends gone, I seen bad days
Still find songs that I hear him on
Getting my Mary J. Blige "Reminisce" on
I hear his voice in my mind like, nigga live on
So I get on that fly shit I been on
Spin on corners in Enzo with rims on
But for info, puffing on Endo-Nesia
Give me amnesia
I ease up, that right, I'm high nigga
I want the sky
The world when I'm done
I'm give it to my sons
Let em live it up, split it up, switch it up
Sixes kit it up
Man I did it up, done
The rest of my belongings belong in the hall of fame
A list of hits next to all my names
I came"
I'm tired of the narrative among Jay being, "Oh Jay has a better catalog than Nas but Nas is a better rapper/lyricist), or "Jay is a good songwriter but Nas, Nas is better spitter", or "Jay has the money/commercial success but Nas is a real artist."
No, this album is peak Jay, and it shows exactly why Jay is a more intelligent rapper and a better poet than Nas, and many of the other rappers people try to put above him, none of that one toe in the water "I like Jay more and think he has better albums than Nas but Nas is a better rapper" garbage.
