With all that hype, 'Why not just sign the guy?' asks the Creative Commons' Brown. The Boston Globe called it 'the most intriguing hip-hop album in recent memory.' 'The ultimate remix record,' gushed Rolling Stone. Atlanta-based producer Kno fused Jay-Z words with Southern sounds.īut it's Danger Mouse's pairing of classic rock and brand-new hip-hop that is the most jarring remix of the rapper nicknamed Jigga. Kardinal Offishall and Solitair, the dance-hall reggae artists from Canada, gave the record a rude-boy twist. Talib Kweli Cleverly Responds to Jay-Z’s Compliment Sure enough, the underground took note of one of the more quotable lines from Jay-Z’s The Black Album (2003). The original concept of a 'black album' appears to have been where an artist self-censors their catalogue, and shelves or withdraws a body of work that theyre either dissatisfied with: or, if the hype machine is to be believed, they believe to be too disturbing, depressing or accursed to release. Jay-Z's engineer, Young Guru, told MTV.com last month that the rapper released a words-only version of The Black Album so DJs could 'remix the hell out of it.' And they have. BLACK ON BOTH SIDES: ANGUS BATEY ON JAY-Z. 'There's not a lot of excitement for further downstream innovation being blocked. 'So long as there's money to be made, it's a negotiation,' he said. To Zittrain, that smacks of 'copyright as a means of control, rather than a means of profit.' In the American legal tradition, he notes, copyright is seen as a way to make sure innovators get paid for their work, not to keep others from being creative.

(The one exception to the rule, the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, came out before the rules of sampling were clearly established.) This was made for Bucks Instagram to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Jay-Z dropping The Black Album.

So while the Beatles' tunes have been recorded by thousands of bands, their song catalog has been notoriously off-limits to hip-hop and dance-music producers' manipulations. Remixing and sampling are a different matter, however.

Jay z the black album cartook