Guess who’s back? Retirement, it appears, does not agree with Jay-Z, who declared he was hanging up his mic at the end of 2003’s The Black Album. In fact, for someone supposedly out the game, Mr. Beyoncé Knowles has been suspiciously prolific: as well as his new day job as chief executive of Def Jam Records, he’s released two collaborative albums (not counting Danger Mouse’s unofficial Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up) and guested on dozens more.
Stepping out of non-retirement, Jay-Z brings with him a curious rag-bag of chums: crooner John Legend is on hand to add end-of-summer poignancy to ‘Do You Wanna Ride’; Chris Martin can be found mooching in the background on ‘Beach Chair’; Beyoncé contributes her indelible warble to ‘Hollywood’, the album’s most successful lurch at a big pop moment.
But it's Jay-Z’s magnificent flow that makes Kingdom Come so compelling. Kanye West aside, it's difficult to think of a mainstream rapper whose rhymes feel so supple and energised – as the single ‘Show Me What You Got’ demonstrates, three years in the boardroom have robbed him of none of his verbal dexterity.
Lyrically, however, Jay-Z would seem to have lost a trick or two: he brags interminably about his wealth, his cars, his honeyz (is Beyoncé listening?) – only on the slow-mo New Orleans tribute ‘Minority Report’ does he move beyond playa’ boilerplate (“Sure I ponied up a mill, but I didn’t give my time/So in reality I didn’t give a dime, or a damn/I just put my monies in the hands of.../Left them folks abandoned/Damn, that money that we gave was just a band-aid"). Still, despite its occasional crassness, Kingdom Come adds up to a thrilling salvo from an MC who, at 37, is a long way from washed up.