"Jay Z was mad at me, too." In 2002, The Source retroactively granted Reasonable Doubt the coveted five-mic status - which was better never than late, according to the artist himself. "A lot of people hated me for the Reasonable Doubt review," Braxton says. (Two years later, Braxton would pen a five-mic review: Outkast’s Aquemini.) It fits on The Nutty Professor soundtrack." Despite those reservations, Reasonable Doubt earned a decent four mics - based on an aggregate rating from the reviewer and The Source staff - on the magazine’s famous five-mic scale. "Politically, I had problems with the misogyny, and I still think that ‘Ain’t No Nigga,’ sonically, does not belong on that record. There were a couple of records I didn’t like," Braxton says. "The first time I listened to the album, I liked it. Without knowing the extent of Jay’s real-life hustles, his Reasonable Doubt lyrical transformation could seem as jarring as the sartorial gap from Hawaiian shirts to Al Capone suits. Up to that point, Jay had lurked in the shadows of non-crime-obsessed rap elders like the aforementioned Jaz, Big Daddy Kane, and Original Flavor. In his review, Braxton describes, from a fan’s perspective as much as a critic’s, the evolution of Jay Z: hip-hop sidekick to Mafia-style frontman. It’s the same ol’ criminal melodrama that you hear on so many rap LPs nowadays. In terms of subject matter, Braxton wrote in The Source, Jay-Z isn’t saying anything new. Jay was talented, in other words, but a bit trite. In fact, his Source review opens with a slightly patronizing reference to "Hawaiian Sophie," the comically bad Jaz-O single whose video features a very young Jay Z in 1989: Who would have thought that the short kid with the high-top fade and a boom box would ever grow up to be an emcee kingpin with a hit?īraxton had a ritual before reviewing albums: "Turn off the lights, close my eyes, put on my earphones, and listen through it five times." (As opposed to: hear a few 30-second snippets and spit out a definitive take on Twitter.) His first impression of Reasonable Doubt was not an uncommon opinion of Jay Z at the time: here was an undeniably compelling MC who was hampered by his material - the drug-kingpin fantasies that were de rigueur in mid-’90s rap and the subject of heavy backlash on prominent ’96 releases like the Fugees’ The Score and De La Soul’s Stakes Is High.
"I knew Jay Z, initially, from his connection to Jaz," says Braxton, referring to Jay’s Marcy Projects mentor. In 1996, Jay Z was a New York indie artist worth critical attention, but without the national buzz of 1994’s famed rookie class of Nas and Biggie.
But though Braxton grew up in the Deep South (and never left), he considered himself an expert on East Coast hip-hop. "Fresh ears" presumably meant those belonging to someone from outside the echo chamber of NYC. "I think Selwyn wanted someone with fresh ears," Braxton says now. So when Source editor-in-chief Selwyn Seyfu Hinds asked Braxton to write about Reasonable Doubt, it was both an opportunity and a challenge. In ’96, the magazine was the undisputed rap bible - its reviews section, the gospel. He had already been published in hip-hop publications like Rap Pages and 4080 in his other life, he wrote and performed poetry. Braxton’s review of the record would be his first byline in The Source.Īt 34, Braxton was hardly a writing novice. For its recipient, Charlie Braxton, Jay Z’s 1996 debut would also represent a personal milestone. "Reasonable Doubt" was carefully handwritten on the label.
The dubbed cassette arrived at his Mississippi home via FedEx from New York. To commemorate, we’re celebrating with Jay Z Day. June 25 marks the 20th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, Jay Z’s first album.
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