The Black Album Review

The concept was a farewell: one beat from each of the best producers alive, no rap features, and a survey of his own life delivered like a closing argument. December 4th is the birth, his mother speaking between the verses, and it sets a tone the record keeps. Public Service Announcement is two minutes of pure swagger over a howling guitar loop and it is still the thing people put on when they want to feel unstoppable.

99 Problems is a drum break and three verses that each pull a different trick, the middle one a courtroom scene with a joke buried in its last line. Encore and What More Can I Say are the ceremony. The weakness is that a few tracks are shape without substance, the sound of a man performing significance. But the ratio is good, the sequencing is immaculate, and as an ending it would have been close to perfect.