Jay-Z - The Early Years

This is mandatory listening. Just has to be. Not only for the kids that only know Jay as "Hovito", Beyonce's main dude and the guy that owns a large portion of the New Jersey Nets....but also for all the heads that have been there since day one of his career, that might at this point need a walk down memory lane. Indeed these joints are from, well, a whole other lifetime all together really.

When I was growing up, the first time I heard Jay, was over at a friend's crib. In between running through our usual listening regimen of Cube, Snoop, W.C. and all that was poppin' on the west at the moment, my boy slid in somethin' new he had copped at the record store that day. At this point I was still broke and didn't do much shopping for music of my own, but rather, I was the guy that steady just recorded everything at my boys crib's and off the radio, which at that point wasn't completely worthless. I had a nice cache of recordable cassette tapes thanks to my older sister's dabbling in her own musical inclinations, but her's included much more punk, grunge and indy rock however, which at this time was also really starting to explode. Man it was such a great time man....the early and mid 90's, but I digress.....my boy threw an unfamiliar CD into his stereo and after a few seconds it began....it was "Reasonable Doubt", Jay's iconic, classic debut and it was nuts. All you heard was the record buttin go "click" man....lol

Before that I had heard of Jay here and there, but never really had the access to the stuff he was doin' warming up to "Reasonable Doubt". From there on I grabbed everything from Jay, but it wasn't until the early 2K that I started exploring some of his pre-"Reasonable Doubt" stuff. There is a myriad of joints out there that Jay recorded before he linked up with Dame and Biggs and formed Rocafella, many of which are featured here on this excellent mix (props to Claa7 on Wutangcorp) that combines some of Jay's timeless joints from that memorable debut LP, when he was just running around Marcy wit Big Jaz, dope remixes from the game's illest producer's of all-time and sorted classic performance's (see track 5). Get yaself an education on what was goin down with the man back when he was just Jigga, not the CEO of Hip-Hop.

-BIG D O








01. The Originators (ft. Jaz-O)
02. It's So Simple (ft. Jaz-O)
03. Can I Get Open (ft. Original Flavor)
04. Many Styles (ft. Original Flavor)
05. Show & Prove (ft. Big Daddy Kane, ODB, Shyheim, Sauce Money)
06. In My Lifetime
07. Can't Get Wid Dat
08. Da Graveyard (ft. Big L, Party Arty, Lord Finesse)
09. Time to Build (ft. Mic Geronimo, DMX, Ja Rule)
10. Dead Presidents I
11. Dead or Alive Pt. 1
12. Foundation (ft. Jaz-O, Sauce Money)
13. Don't Wanna Be Alone (ft. Shai) [Marley Marl RMX]
14. In My Lifetime [Big Jaz Remix]
15. Analyze This (ft. Lord Tariq & NaS)
16. You're Only A Customer
17. A Million & One Questions [DJ Premier Remix]

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