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Artwork by Joseph Devens.


It's hard to imagine nowadays with the Oprah canoodling, lifestyle blogging, and learned taste for indie rock, but Jay-Z wasn't always so antiseptic. Before "Beach Chair" and his current legacy rap period, Hova boasted a bruising batting average: ten ghetto anthems for every "Lobster & Shrimp" banana peel. Beyond the Bloomberg brunches or uptown art gallery openings with delicate bffs lies an increasingly-overlooked corpus banished in a Disney-like vault.

Jay-Z has hardened into a role model, an author, the Bohemian rap city's generous boss, and a sucker for love. He'll probably be an elected official one day. He'll probably be remembered as affectionately for foreign aid trips to the Congo as he is for hungry rapping.

Folks love to draw Jordan parallels in hip-hop, but Jay-Z is more Bill Russell -- the tireless laborer with more rings than anyone. Jordan left the court (at least the first two times) with a flawless record; like Russ, Jay-Z's had awkward, gangly moments of fatigue and error.

But the difference between sports and music, of course, is that in music the entire point is the journey, the work left for consumption. The sports winner immortalizes the present. You generally don't watch highlights of specific jumpers over and over. Jay-Z has made a double album's worth of terrible music (and that's just with R. Kelly), but he's also left behind a treasure chest of top tier, fully realized, expertly narrated albums.

It's why ATG believes that Jay-Z is the best rapper of all-time. There's an argument to be made about raw talent and iconography, a stupider one to be made factoring in wealth and branding, but because the G.O.A.T. conversation stems from music, the prevailing criterion must be the music itself. Biggie made two albums and the second one was spotty, Diddy-heavy. Tupac recorded urgently in order to fulfill an exploitative contract, and quality control suffered. Neither will stop the seekers from copying and pasting verses (over J Dilla beats, probably) long after we're gone. Who will remix "Money Ain't A Thang?"

The Blueprint III was Emmitt Smith on the Cardinals. It was playing catch with your dad during winter break, as he struggled to compose the spirals you used to have to go long for. It sucked. The long-awaited duet album with Kanye West will suck too.

Without touching any singles, ATG's inner circle spent weeks narrowing down hundreds of fantastic, somewhat deeper cuts into a spiraling, essential mix of Jay-Z at his most inventive, honest, dazzling, and charismatic. It's a mix meant to be consumed with the windows down, on the tro, during cookouts. No consideration was given to the scope of an individual track's project or date. These greatest non-hits are intended to survey Jay's entire catalogue from peak to peak. They're intended to make heads nod for more reasons than one. They are, as the man himself once taught us, for the culture.


SIDE A

1. A Million and One Questions / Rhyme No More
2. Can I Live
3. Heart of the City
4. December 4
5. Kingdom Come
6. U Don't Know [Remix]
7. Guess Who's Back
8. Never Let Me Down
9. Girls Girls Girls, Part II
10. Party Life
11. What More Can I Say
12. Takeover
13. Ignorant Shit
14. Renegade

 

SIDE B
 
1. It's Like That
2. Snoopy Track
3. Never Change
4. In My Lifetime [Remix]
5. Come On Baby [Remix]
6. Dear Summer
7. This Can't Be Life
8. So Ghetto
9. P.S.A.
10. Hell Yeah [Remix]
11. Watch Me
12. Watcher II
13. Black Republican
14. Momma Loves Me


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All photos by Callie Richmond for ATG.

Here's an itemized breakdown of the sites and sounds Reggie and I experienced during March's South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. It was fun and intense. More importantly, hit the jump to sample ATG's avalanche of wonderful, exclusive photos taken and procured in the name of hip-hop.  

Reggie

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Ramon

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All photos by Callie Richmond for ATG.

First, the internal, editorial decision was made to give up on the medium and forgo a rundown about rap videos. There were some cool ones, but listing them wouldn't be indicative of what was being bumped in the clubs, the streets, the subways, the cars, and through the earphones. More importantly, there's no competition.

As individualistic and fickle as listeners continue to be, this year-end list is defined by uniting, thumping moments that kept everyone zoned out in headphone bliss for days on end. In 2010, heavyweights emerged and veterans forcefully pushed back, but not in a Raekwon v. Kid Cudi, two schools sort of way like last year. By now we all understand it's all good. With such a precondition firmly in place, creativity burned down regional barriers like never before. Save for New York City's inbred, traditionalist talent pool (good luck there pushing Vado, you guys), American rap soared and 2010 will stand along any year's genre output.

One half of the ATG editorial board (the Reggie half) spent 2010's early months tirelessly laboring for Frontline on a documentary. It's called "The Quake" and it premiered March 30 on PBS.  In Reggie's words:

Our film is a thoughtful, exhaustive look at Haiti's unnaturally deadly disaster and the spiraling humanitarian crisis that threatens to confound the largest global relief effort in modern memory. It features interviews with Secretary Hillary Clinton, Former President Bill Clinton, and Partners in Health Founder Paul Farmer among many others.

Thanks so much for your support and don't forget to check it out!

P.S. I designed the promo graphic!


Check it out after the jump.

All photos by Callie Richmond for ATG.

We're here.

As the Interactive component of South by Southwest 2010 winds down, media geeks cut loose. Monday night, locals, badge attendees and locals wearing a badge from two years ago to sneak into prohibited areas scoured downtown for the RVIP (a traveling caravan complete with on-board open bar and karaoke that's supposedly awesome provided its impenetrable Twitter account leads you in the right direction), itself a trendy ticket as famous-for-being-attractive-and-friendly celeb, Ashton Kutcher, reportedly jumped in.

Elsewhere, ATG was shut out of the Beer Camp beer pong invitational for failing to register online beforehand, though there was plentiful, accessible free Shiner. Foursquare threw a tech meltdown at Cedar Door complete with Next singalongs. A bunch of people lined up outside a bunch of clubs for some reason or another.

Without question, the highlight of the evening came courtesy of Thrillist, celebrating the launch of an Austin branch with vodka and hip-hop charmer, Kid Sister.

Hit the jump for an exclusive slideshow from the evening, rundown of where one can find FREE HIP-HOP CONCERTS all over Austin this week.

The bad news first: next week brings an industry conference loaded with narcissism, wide-eyed idealists following loyally, artists half-assing it, corporate partners causing traffic jams, too many writers becoming self-fulfilling prophets by covering what they've been force-feeding you since CMJ, The Austin Chronicle ratting out dissenters by providing APD with a list of unofficial shindigs, slimy human beings joining forces.
Get over it.
As a music fan, none of this should matter. As a free alcohol fan, none of this should matter.
With respects to Big Boi's OutKast singalong, Kanye's antics and Bun B's Texas pride last year, 2010 is loaded with rappers that matter and loaded nightly lineups only the most cynical of heads would tune out and boasts the best SXSW hip-hop lineup ever.
First, we look at the chalk; at the sanctioned, slated showcases:


WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Stank love for album of the aughts?


We've been working on best of lists and formulating this site's second incarnation. We'll be back shortly. Hallelujah holla back.

As promised, it's time for bold predictions made with swagger, cojones, and not the slightest tinge of fear.

Our resident, makes-"Baseball Tonight"-promos-working-for-ESPN-up-in-Bristol, namedrop-worthy ace, J. Couch, goes in. I, too, go in. You won't guess our Super Bowl picks.


LISTEN.

This blog is not about sports, granted. But ATG used to write these previews during college and we think you'd agree the NFL is infinitely more interesting than Kid Cudi.

More importantly, hip-hop, over rivaling genres, is woven with American sports into a two-way, perfectly symbiotic establishment. Michael Phelps shares his affinity for Lil Wayne during his Chinese medal bonanza, then he introduces a Weezy performance at an awards show, then Lil Wayne writes a song about Phelps.

Rappers praise. Athletes listen. Most involved with either love the other and lines are crossed.

There's the justification. Also, I need to switch gears and stop writing about Jay-Z.

Moreover, if you're like the minds behind ATG, you're burning for kickoff extra hard right now. Maybe it's the way things ended last year for Cowboys fans, the brimming excitement behind extra-compelling preseason storylines, the lack of faith in baseball's modern era, the lack of American hegemony in soccer, the fact golf is more interesting when golf balls are neon colored and putts avoid windmills and dinosaurs, or that football provides the most thrilling competitive action available on my off-brand HD TV, but I'm fucking jacked.

Smell the glove here.