Phenomblak's Top 25 Jay-Z Songs

Finally.  After a weekend of listening to nothing but Jigga man, and a full two days reading lyrics and nitpicking over why one song is better than another, I've got the list.  Its here, you're only a few scrolls away from it.  A lot of you aren't going to like my #1 choice.  So be it.

Before you read the list:
Understand that this is my personal list.  This is my definitive list of songs that I love to sit and listen to by Jay-z.  I've read a lot of people's Top 20, and Top 15, and Top 10 lists, and to say the least, I personally think mines is the best -- 100% Bias.  You can look at other peoples' lists and tell they were either born in the mid 90's, born before the mid 80's, or are just commercially retarded.  So here's a little background, so you know where I stand.  I'm a mid 80's baby.  My first Jay-Z album was Vol.2, AND I borrowed it from a white chick, Thanks Ashley!  I didn't listen to Reasonable Doubt or In My Lifetime until maybe 2 years after Vol.2 around the age of 16.  That's it.  That's all yo ass needs to know.  Now go, go judge my list and tell me how wrong I am, and how Can I live shouldn't there, or why isn't Excuse me Miss there, or how come This Can't Be Life is so high on this list.. blah blah blah.. all that bullshit that comes with lists like these. 

Nas list coming soon....

Lets get these out the way...

Honorable Mentions: ( 99 Problems, Big Pimpin Extended Version, Excuse me miss/lalala, Renegade, Lucky me, NYMP, Encore, Reservoir Dogs, Real As it Gets, Pray, Kingdom Come, Lost Ones, Blueprint2, Girls Girls Girls)

The List:

25.  Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up) ft. Beanie Sigel & Amil
- Do again was actually a club jam.  And I don't mean one of the girls grinding on you, I mean girls in your face spitting the lyrics to the song right back at you.  This was back when Rockwilder was kicking out so of the craziest beats for great rappers.  The song not only had an ill video with Jay-z hat on lean, but the world got to see what Beanie Sigel was really all about!  MACK! 

You know how niggaz get in the club, shit you know how I be
All high in VIP, rolling up to B.I.G. (Baby)
Niggaz be all liquored up talkin shit
Till' they man gotta come pick them up
Got bitches in the back bouncin to "Jigga What"
You got your hands up and I ain't even stick y'all up

24.  You Don't Know (Remix) ft. M.O.P.
-  I remember  back in the day, on dial up, using Kazaa to get my music.  This is before limewire was poping.  And I remember seeing that there was a remix to one of my favorite songs from The Blueprint album, You Don't Know.  So I downloaded it, and it instantly because one of my favorite Jay-Z songs and mostly because M.O.P. spazzed the fuck out.  I don't care where you play this joint today.  Nigga you could play this shit on the moon, and fools would come out of nowhere acting crazy and spitting them bars like their lives dependent on it.

In this family we'll rule the world
And you haters can eat a dick up till you hiccup and hurl
A decade on the grind, nigga I paid mine
So it's my time to shine and for you can ride the pine
I wont sit back and rap like these dumb ass kids
I been around, I put it down, I aint these young ass kids

23. Public Service Announcement
- The Black album was supposed to be Jay-z retirement album.  Almost 8 years later, we know that not to be anywhere near the fucking truth.  Hell, Rick Ross must have told him to say that shit.  But out of it came alot of great songs, What More Can I say, Encore, Moment of Clarity, 99 Problems, etc.  Some of those didn't make this list, but this one did.  PSA is the official Theme song of any real ass mutha fucka.  If you need to make an entrance, the type that'll get you the eyes of every bad chick in the room, and the envy of every low self-esteemed lame in the room, PSA has to be your bgm.  The fact that Jay-z used a real PSA, and a break in the middle just to settle down the hype only to re-up it to a hunnid again was amazing. You lying if you claiming you ain't never said, ALLOW ME TO RE-INTRODUCE MYSELF...

I'm like, Che Guevara with bling on, I'm complex
I never claimed to have wings on
Nigga I get mine - by any means on whenever there's a drought
Get your umbrellas out because, that's when I brainstorm
You can blame Shawn, but I ain't invent the game
I just rolled the dice, tryin to get some change
And I do it twice, ain't no sense in me
lyin as if, I am a different man

22. Blueprint (Momma Loves me) & Lyrical Exercise (Cheat move)
- Call it what you want, but as far as I know, you can't skip between to the two tracks.  If you want to hear Lyrical Exercise you have to listen to Blueprint (Momma Loves me).  Jay-Z had niggaz in tapedeck mode, no fast foward with this album.  Blueprint is one of Jay-z's more revealing and personal tracks.  The beat fits the mood of the song and completely immerse the listener in this aging family portrait that Jay tries to paint for us.  And after that emotional melody, if you wait just a little while, you're greeted with Lyrical exercise. 1..1,2..2,3...3, 4... BREATH EASY!!  Lyrical Exercise is exactly what is claims to be.

Get your weight up
Not your hate up
Jigga man is diesel
When I lift the eight up
Y'all ain't ready to workout with the boy
Your flow is brain on drugs
Mines is rap on steroids
I lift every voice when I sing
My ability
Make yours look like an exercise in futility

21. Friend or Foe/ Friend of Foe 98' (Cheat Move)
- Look, the song has two parts and it doesn't make since to tell yall to go listen to the first song.  that's like telling someone to go see Xmen 3 with out seeing the first two.  If you gone make someone watcha  shit storm, atleast let em watch the whole shit storm, they may like it.  Aside from that, Friend or Foe is definitely a one of a kind track from Reasonable Doubt.  Never has a rapper so sarcastically painted the picture of a conversation with another person who's getting hemmed up in such a lyrical fashion.  And the follow up on In My Lifetime was bound to happen.  I'm glad Jay kepts it reals. 

look, its out of my hands
and you gettin money round here, its not in the plans
so hop yo ass out of that van, head back to kansas
i'm sendin niggas back up in campuses
chance is slimmer than that chick in calvin klien pants is
let me guess, they said it was money round here
and the rest is me stoppin you from gettin it, correct?
sorry to hear that, my guess is you got work at the hotel
i'll take care of that , you'll soon see, now please
give me the room key

20. Come And Get me
- Vol. 3 is NOT one of Jay-Z best musical endeavors.  The album has way too many throw away songs, and part of that is the fault of bootlegging ass booleggers like myself.  See, we had the OFFICIAL Vol. 3.  You know, the one that had the original version of Is That You Bitch, with 3 verse from Jay-Z and no Memphis Bland..I mean Bleek.  Either way, when the album did drop there was one inarguable truth, Come And Get Me was one of, if not the illest track on the album.  The switch up of the beats, the empressive display of lyrcism, and the subliminal slander Jay was throwing had niggaz ignoring the rest of the album.  Hey, did yall know Nas had a song called Come and Get me too... weird huh?

Ignorant bastard, I'm takin it back to day one
No kids, but trust me I know how to raise a gun
For niggaz that think I spend my days in the sun
well here's the shock of your life, the glock not the mic
Homey I'm not into hype; trust me, I'm still street
You still fuckin up then trust me I still creep
Yeah I know the platinum chain be lookin real sweet
but reach and I bury niggaz sixty feet deep
S dot Carter turn rappers into martyrs

19. Takeover
- There's nothing really great about Takeover, except for the way it was released, the production, the flat out dismissal of no-name rappers with half a bar, oh and the fact that Nas and Mobb Deep got ALLLL they shit put on blast.  How do you shut down a summer, I don't know, but this is definitely how you Takeover a summer.  Jay-Z is the reason Nas got back in the studio and gave us one of his best albums to date, Stillmatic.  Mobb Deep however, they didn't respond back so well.  But hey, you can't win them all Prodigy.

When I ws pushn weight, back in eighty-eight    <- FunFact: I was about 4 years old thenyou was a ballerina I got your pictures I seen ya
Then you dropped "Shook Ones," switch your demeanor
Well - we don't believe you, you need more people
Roc-A-Fella, students of the game, we passed the classes
Nobody can read you dudes like we do
Don't let 'em gas you like Jigga is ass and won't clap you
Trust me on this one - I'll detach you
Mind from spirit, body from soul
They'll have to hold a mass, put your body in a hole

18. Allure
- Another touching track from the Black Album.  Jay-z basically reveals all his vices that have come with the fame and stardom.  The production by Neptunes was so on point that this song became a notable favorite against fans with a vagina, and fans with out a vagina, but act like they have vaginas, oh and all other fans too.  It's really just a beautiful listen-- Either my balls just shrunk or my vagina just grew! 

 never felt more alive than ridin' shotgun in kleins green five until the cops pulled guns...... and try to smoke weed to gimme the fix i need what the game did to my pulse with no results...... or you could treat ya nose and still won't come close...... the game is a light bulb with eleventy million volts and i'm just a moth addicted to the floss when the doors lift from the floor and the tops come off.....

17.  You Must Love Me
- Jay-Z has a lot of personal tracks.  I don't think any of those tracks have had more people questioning the truths of the events spoken about than this one.  Did jay-z really shoot his fam.  Did he really have a chick get busted.  The song is about the growth of man who has learned for all the horrible things he's done and comes to the realization, You must love me, if you still accept me after what I did to you or put your through.

All you did was motivate me
don't let 'em hold you back
What I do I turned around
and I sold you crack
I was a bastard for that
still I'm drowning in shame
Just remember one thing now
you're not to blame
You was newly seperated
tryin' to escape ya world
and through my thirst
I didn't help you
I just made things worse

16. Never Change 
- Never, never never never change....I'll never change!  Its been debated and will always be debated that The Blueprint is Jay-Z's best album-- I say its Reasonable Doubt.  But with songs like this, I can understand why someone never plans on changing their opinion about this, pun intended.  The song is like a graceful display of gangster.  You can't expect Kanye West to sample David Ruffin and come out with some hard knocking shit.  So instead we get Jay-Z reflecting on the "fact" that even after 5 previously studio albums, he is still in the streets state of mind.  This is Jay-Z everyday.

I’ll never change this is always me(change)
from the womb to the tomb
from now to my doom(what)(change)
drink army from one cup pass it around the room
that’s the ritual(yep) big gran I aint forgot you fool and all that bullshit you
tryin to get through(change)
this is crew love, move music or move drugs(change)

15. A Week Ago
- I never hear people talk about this song, the way I think they should.  If its one thing that Jay-Z is great at doing, its telling stories.  And a week ago is one of his best attempts and Keeping it real.  This is what happens when someone moves up and the other goes some other, less rewarding direction in life.  It was all good just a week ago.

The lawyer I retained you said you leakin some things
All this after a week in the bang
I'm mad at myself cause I didn't spot the weak and lame
I woulda bet the house you wouldn't speak a thang
Nigga this was the oath, to the top of broke
Even pricked our finger, anything that got between us
we sposed to cock the ninas, what happened to that?
Instead you copped out to a misdemeanor
Fuck it, the same thing make you laugh make you cry
That's right, the same game that make you mad could make you die
It's a dice game, and sometimes you crap
Who woulda thought you'd get popped one time and rat?

14. Moment of Clarity
- The song is what it says it is and so much more given the dark melody and brash delivery.  Jay-Z's attitude is that someone who has no remorse for what people claim he's about when they don't even know him.  He talks about how he wishes the world would have accepted his music, but knows that will never be.  He' just making sure his listeners know it too.

Truthfully
I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
(But i did five Mil)
I ain't been rhymin like Common since
When your sense got that much in common
And you been hustlin since
Your inception
Fuck perception
Go with what makes sense
Since
I know what i'm up against
We as rappers must decide what's most impor-tant
And i can't help the poor if i'm one of them
So i got rich and gave back
To me that's the win, win

13. Where I'm From
- Yea I know this is track 13 on the Vol.1.  Not intended.  This was one of the first Jay-z Videos I saw.  I wasn't a big Jigga fan back then, but for some reason the song stuck on my head.  So when I didn't become a Jay-Z fan, and i heard it, i instantly remembered the video.  Not to mention, I'd also heard a rendition of this song done by Jojo Pellegrino.  But aside from all that, this is just another song full of imagery.  You can see the guys on the streets having conversations.  You can see the projects towering all around.  I love this song for making me feel like I'm in Marcy and also for making me feel glad I'm NOT in Marcy while listening to it.

I'm from the place where the chruch is the flakiest
And niggas is praying to god so long that they Atheist
Where you can't put your vest away and say you'll wear it tomorrow
Cause the day after we'll be saying, damn I was just with him yesterday
I'm a block away from hell, not enough shots away from straight shells
An ounce away from a triple beam still using a hand-held weight scale
Your laughing, you know the place well
Where the Liqour Store's and the base well
And Government, fuck Government, niggas polotic themselves

12. What more Can I Say
- I had a difficult time choosing this over Encore.  Both of them are great songs and pretty much represent the same concept, a closing anthem to a long legacy.  "Grand opening, Grand closing".  In the end i chose What more Can I say because of the way its executed on tape.  Encore is great live, but What More Can I Say actually says more to the listener during playback, IMO.  Plus, who can't picture that mic dropping "Fuck this" at the end.

I'm not the one to score points off
In fact
I got a joint to knock your points off
Young
Hova the God nigga blast for me
I'm at the Trump International
Ask for me
I ain't never scared
I'm everywhere
You ain't never there
Nigga why would i ever care
Pound for pound I'm the best to ever come around here
Excluding nobody
Look what i embody
The soul of a hustler i really ran the street

11. Can I Live
- I purchased Reasonable Doubt off a kid at school for $5.  Words can't express how important that purchase was to me today.  Can I Live was the first song on the album that I fell in love with.  The beat was perfect.  The delivery was so complimentary.  The lyrics are just great.  I'll never get tired of listening to this song. 

My mind is infested, with sick thoughts that circle
like a Lexus, if driven wrong it's sure to hurt you
Dual level like duplexes, in unity, my crew and me
commit atrocities like we got immunity
You guessed it, manifested in tangible goods
Platinum Rolexed it, we don't lease
we buy the whole car, as you should
My confederation, dead a nation, EXPLODE
on detonation, overload the mind of a said patient

10. Hardknock Life
- So cliche. I know. Who Cares. I do. That's why this song is number ten.  Jay-Z brought the suburbs to the hood.  I mean, i ain't gonna lie, I was going to school in the suburbs when I borrowed this album from that white chicks.  Thanks again Ashley!

We live in hard knocks, we don't take over we borrow blocks
Burn em down and you can have it back daddy, I'd rather that
I flow for chicks wishin, they ain't have to strip to pay tuition
I see you vision mama, I put my money on the longshots
All my ballers that's born to clock
Now Imma be on top whether I perform or not
I went from lukewarm to hot; sleepin on futons and cots
to King Size, dream machines, the green fives
I've seen pies let the thing between my eyes analyze life's ills
Then I put it down type braile

09. Heart of the City
- When Kanye produced "This Can't Be Life" I was very impressed at this guy I'd never heard shit from before.  When Kanye produced this song, I knew he was going to be great.  They got this song 100% on the money.  Its got feeling and emotion, its got a great hook, its got great lyrics.  Jay-z spazzed and Kanye spazzed on this, in a soulful rappy sing along type of way.

Yung'uns ice-grilling me, oh - you're not feeling me?
Fine; it cost you nothing - pay me no mind
Look, I'm on my grind cousin, ain't got time for fronting
Sensitive thugs, you all need hugs
Damn though mans I'm just trying do me
If the record's two mill I'm just trying move three
Get a couple of chicks, get 'em to try to do E
Hopefully they'll menage before I reach my garage

08. Brooklyn's Finest
- Big and Jay-z in the studio at the same time, basically battling over the same beat but sharing a concept wild doing it.  I don't think there's much more in this life that's classic.  Maybe Salem Hayek's breasts.. MAYBE!

[Biggie]
Frank Wright, need the keys to your Integra
(That's right)
Chill homie, the bitch in the Shownies told me
Your holding more drugs than a pharmacy
You ain't harmin me, so pardon me
Pass the safe before I blaze the place and here's six shots just in case

[Jay-Z]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for nine six, the only MC with a flu
Yeah I rhyme sick, I be what your tryin to do
Made a fortune off Peru, extradite, china white hero(i)n
Nigga please, like short sleeves I bear arms

07. This Can't Be Life
-  The first beat I ever heard from Kanye, along with the first time I'd ever heard Beans get deep on a brotha.  Scarfaces verse album almost always brings a tear to my.  Who can't hear the pain in his voice.  "I'm I'm hurint for you dawg!"

My life is gettin too wild
I need to bring some sorta calm to it
Bout to lose it; voices screamin "Don't do it!"
It's like '93, '94, bout the year
that Big and Mach dropped; and "Illmatic" rocked
outta every rag drop, and the West had it locked
Everybody doin 'em, I'm still scratchin on the block
like "Damn; I'ma be a failure"
Surrounded by thugs, drugs, and drug - paraphenalia
Cops courts, and their thoughts is to derail us
Three time felons in shorts with jealous thoughts
Tryin figure where your mil is, guesstimate the weight you sellin
So they can send shots straight to your melon; wait!

06. Imaginary Player
- Vol. 1 had alot to offer as far as introducing fans more to the hustler side of Jay-Z, the flashy and cocky side.  Imaginary Player is nothing short of that.  The song is classic cool.  What's the difference between a 4.0 and a 4.6....?

Where is all the ice with all the platinum under that?
Those ain't rolex diamonds, what the fuck you done to that?
Y'all rapping-ass niggas, y'all funny to me
Selling records, being you but still you want to be me
I guess for every buck you make it's like a hundred for me
And still you running around thinking you got something on me
But I done did it
And y'all want to take my flow, and run with it
That's cool, I was the first one with it

05. Dynasty Intro

- I got to be honest.  I haven't listened tot he Dynasty album in yearssssssss.  Its a travesty to say the least.  A compilation of boolshyt that should have stayed a compilation, but Hov is a greedy nigguh.  So he took an L on quality to get a W on sales and number, and another notch on his album belt.  With that said, this may be the best intro in the history Hov.   It's pretty easy to forget about the amount of deep references and metaphors being used in this single verse, so I needed some convincing.  Shout out to all the twitter folk who kept asking me if this made the list.  As you can see, it did!

Oh! Keen senses ever since I was a, teen on the benches
everytime somebody like Enus was mentioned
I would turn green, me, bein in the trenches
Him, livin adventureous not worryin about expenditures
I'm bravin temperatures below zero, no hero
No father figure, you gotta pardon a nigga
But I'm starvin my niggaz, and the weight loss in my figure
is startin to darken my heart, bout to get to my liver
Watch it my niggaz, I'm tryin to be calm but I'm gon' get richer
through any means, with that thing that Malcolm palmed in the picture

04. Streets is Watching

- Simply put a personal favorite.  This was one of those songs that would be playing in the background as I did other things and after a while I realized that subconsciously I'd memorized the whole damn song.  I would be repeating the lyrics to myself at work and started picking apart what I was saying.  Its street genius.  Jay-Z spit some of the realest hustler talk I'd ever heard up until the moment I realized I was spitting it to pass the time.  This song makes me feel like I'm having this intense conversation with Jay-Z while he's just breaking down the way his mind has made sense of it.

I felt like life was cheating me, for the first time
in my life I was getting money but it was like my concious was eating me
Was this a lesson God teaching me? Was he saying that?
I'm playing the game straight from Hell from which few came back
like bad coke, pimp or die, was my mindframe bad
Was n*ggaz thinkin simplify was turning cocaine crack?
Ain't a whole lot of brain to that, just trying to maintain a stack
and knock a lot like two trains that's on the same track

03. D'Evils

- I always admired how this song was cleverly titles devils.  The way Jay-z paints a dark picture of going all out to get that green in the mean streets is too dope to ignore.  Songs like this, are the Jay-z I'll be telling my kids about when they look at that 60 yr. old dude still rapping with his hat low on the cover of Rolling Stones Living Legends Edition.

Thinkin' back when we first learned to use rubbers
He never learned so in turn I'm kidnappin' his baby's mother
My hand around her collar, feeding her cheese
She said the taste of dollars was shitty so I fed her fifties
About his whereabouts I wasn't convinced
So I kept feedin' her money 'til her shit started to make sense
Who could ever forsee, we used to stay up all night at slumber parties
now I'm tryin' to rock this bitch to sleep
All the years we were real close
Now I see his fears through her tears, know she's wishin' we were still
close

02. Dead Presidents

- Untouchtable lyricism.  Perfectly used sample.  Hell, perfect sample to use.  I remember when i finally got a chance to see the video for Dead Presidents 2 and it was exactly what I had pictured.  This song is the reason I loathe the term Divine Intervention.  I don't even like listening to artist rap over this instrumental.  I don't think annoy one, not even 40+ Jay will ever be able to lyrical recreate what went done infront of the mic this song was recorded on.  Jay-Z says he doesn't write, but I find it hard to believe that he didn't sit down and work out the mechanics of this song.  Its just too unreal if he spit it off the top.

I saw his life slippin, this is a minor set back
Yo, still in all we livin, just dream about the get back
That made him smile though his eyes said, "Pray for me"
I'll do you one better and slay these niggaz faithfully
Murder is a tough thing to digest, it's a slow process
and I ain't got nothin but time
I had near brushes, not to mention three shots
close range, never touched me, divine intervention
Can't stop I, from drinkin Mai-Tai's, with Ty Ty
Down in Nevada, ha ha, Poppa, word life

01. Song Cry

- I told yall niggaz yall won't gone like my number 1 pic.  How can a dude have all those deep street hustlers tracks in his top 10 and have his number 1 Jay-z song be a borderline simptastically executed love song.  Its simple, if you look at Jay-Z's career, he has a pattern, some hood shit to remind us he's from Marcy.  He always has a suburban family friendly radio single that people can mindlessly hum or use on TNT and in commercials and such.  Then he'll have a deep song, something pretty personal about his family, he usually mentions someone with a 2 syllable nick name like Ty-Ty, Tee-Tee.. etc.  So where does Song Cry fall in his usual album development practices.  No where.  The song is a gem.  Song Cry shows a completely different side of Shawn Carter that we have never witnessed before.  Not to mention the production is amazing to sit and soak up.  The vibe of the song is chill, even though the words spell out heartbreak.  My father introduced me to Hip hop, and to this day one of the only rap songs that we can sit and have deep discussions about is Song Cry-- The man 50+ so he's definitely not checking out 2Dopeboyz or OKP everyday.  According to him, this song is a clear representation of artistic growth.  It just shows how far Jay-Z has come, and how far he could continue to go.  Well, 4 more albums later, sky's still the limit for Jigga man.

You helped me get the keys to that V dot 6
We was so happy poor but when we got rich
That's when our signals got crossed, and we got flipped
Rather mine, I don't know what made me leave that shit
Made me speed that quick, let me see - that's it
It was the cheese helped them bitches get amnesia quick
I used to cut up they buddies, now they sayin they love me
Used to tell they friends I was ugly and wouldn't touch me
Then I showed up in that dubbed out buggy
And then they got fussy and they don't remember that
And I don't remember you..

Don't forget to leave your comments, maybe present you lists too