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Hip-Hop/Rap

JAY-Z 'KINGDOM COME' (ROC-A-FELLA)

Jay-Z has come out of his rather futile retirement just to remind you that he's richer than you, his chick is hotter and he bought his mom a house in Rome.

For better or worse, that's what Jay-Z does, and nobody does it better. The kid from the Brooklyn projects has been telling this rags-to-riches story since '96 when his first album came out.

What's changed since "The Black Album" in 2003 is that Jay-Z is not only using money as wallpaper -- he's become the establishment. He's heading up Def Jam, part-owning the Nets, racing with Danica Patrick and pitching computer chips. The other night he was even in the booth of "Monday Night Football."

None of the above lends itself to making a good hip-hop record, with the possible exception of the Def Jam connection, but Jay-Z always got the best producers anyway.

So, here comes "Kingdom Come," which is likely to go platinum in its first week. Most people won't be disappointed. It's a shiny, handsome product that finds the world's greatest MC doing what he does best over an intermittently brilliant collection of beats, courtesy of Just Blaze, Dr. Dre, Kanye West and the Neptunes but, alas, no Rick Rubin.

Blaze gets Best of Show for three early tracks, including the ubiquitous single "Show Me What You Got," that are so good, you wish he'd done the entire thing. "Oh My God" rides a sample of the Allmans' "Whipping Post," with HOVA slapping the young competition with, "Now these baby ballers toy rappers/Calling out my name to bring the boy backwards/Shooting air balls at the basket/What you call money I paid more in taxes." Jay places himself in the ranks of Spidey and Superman on the title track, a sinister, organ-driven rocker that turns wickedly on a sample of "Super Freak."

For several tracks in the middle, though, he shifts the Benz into neutral. His high-life shtick of running from the paparazzi, partying with Chris and Gwyneth, and telling mom Carter he made it gets stale. "Lost One" reveals a lot about his relationship with Beyonce and the loss of his nephew, but it doesn't make for much of a song.

As on "The Black Album," the intensity picks up again toward the end with "Trouble," a darker Dre track that casts aside some of those earlier claims of settling down -- B, be warned.

He finds a subject other than himself on "Minority Report," a heavy, somber track from Dre that deals with -- you knew it was coming -- the government's neglect of New Orleans. Jay implicates himself while pointing out his own generosity, rapping, "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."

He saves the first real experiment for last: Jay-Z and Coldplay. It works. On "Beach Chair," Chris Martin creates a dramatic soundscape with a martial beat for Jay-Z to reflect on the karmic notion of where he's been and what he'll leave behind. "No compass comes with this life," he offers, "Just eyes/so to map it out/you must look inside."

No compass comes with being a 37-year-old zillionaire rapper, either, and Jay struggles with it a bit on "Kingdom Come." We can say it's no "Blueprint," but then again, what is?

-- Scott Mervis, Post-Gazette pop music critic

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THE GAME 'THE DOCTOR'S ADVOCATE' (GEFFEN)

Trying to define his spot in West Coast gangster rap as "One Blood," The Game has set out to covet the famed Old English lettered-hat and dark sunglasses that represented Easy-E and the city of Compton.

But it takes more then a couple of gangland tattoos, a pair of shades and a scowling grimace to convince hip-hop fans that the heir to the venerable Eric Wright's throne is the 26-year-old Los Angeles rapper known as The Game.

After a tumultuous year, complete with rap feuds with former label mates 50 Cent and the entire G-Unit, Jayceon Terell Taylor, otherwise known as The Game, has banged out his sophomore album, "Doctor's Advocate," but he has returned without one piece of the puzzle that helped him achieve multi-platinum success -- the reigning beatsmith of rap music, and a West Coast institution himself, Dr. Dre.

The captivating beat-making that pushed "The Documentary" into legendary status and cemented in many minds that a West Coast resurgence on par with the early 1990s was quietly bubbling has fizzled with the Good Doctor's absence.

The loss of Dr. Dre is only made excruciatingly more of an issue by The Game, who seems to not go a single track without mentioning the missing Dr. Dre and has in fact named this album in honor of his mentor.

On the title track, The Game, accompanied by Busta Rhymes, rhymes drunk while reminiscing about the best of times with Dre and why the fallout between him and the producer should never have happened. "And even though sometimes I run loose/ You still my homeboy Doc I take a bullet for you/ I'm not asking you to take my side in the beef/ But you told me it was OK to say [expletive] the police."

In a number of underground releases The Game showed he can go toe to toe in a rap battle and procure consistent knockouts. But the mixtape artist The Game and studio album artist The Game seem to be wholly different characters.

Nevertheless, The Game has recruited some of the best, brightest and most respected beatmakers in Scott Storch, Hi-Tek, Just Blaze and Kanye West, who deliver a number of hit-worthy songs that are in tune with the type of music The Game excels at making -- hard-hitting West Coast anthems.

Perhaps the sleeper hit on the album is the Will.i.am-produced "Compton," a menagerie of old-school gangster sounds, ironically sampling Easy-E's Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg diss record. The track produces a sound that if only could be duplicated throughout the album would give The Game the rightful and deserved title of King of the West.

The West track "Wouldn't Get Far" is perhaps the most entertaining, yet equally most misogynistic, track on the album, which features West and The Game calling out rap video models whom they have slept with, delving into lurid details while driving the point home that models are after more than just money.

Nas makes an appearance on the last title on the album "Why You Hate the Game," allowing for a feature that finds The Game sparring lyrically with one of the best emcees in the business.

Without Dre, The Game has lost much of the creative edge that defined his first debut, but the artist has demonstrated that he can produce an album that rides strictly on his own shoulders.

He may be just "One Blood," but he is now The Game sans the Doc.

-- Moustafa Ayad, Post-Gazette staff writer

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SNOOP DOGG 'THA BLUE CARPET TREATMENT' (GEFFEN)

Snoop Dogg is a steady breeze in rap music.

And while it may be a heavy chronic-laden cloud, a Snoop album is usually as consistent as a kick and a snare. The long-faced Long Beach native with a green thumb for the sticky-icky is as synonymous with the West Coast as '64 Chevrolet Impalas and sagging Dickies khakis.

With his eighth album, "Tha Blue Carpet Treatment," Snoop has once again redefined himself but kept much of the formula that is the signature cornrows and Steelers jacket along with the cloud of purple haze that follows his every movement.

Since he first debuted, showcasing his lanky frame poking out of an oversized jacket with Dr. Dre for the "Deep Cover" video, Calvin Broadus has been a defining character and barometer of hip-hop's survivability. While other artists seem to fade away, Snoop has prevailed without selling out the persona that has come to define Snoop Doggy Dogg.

"Tha Blue Carpet Treatment" is a 21-track LP that rides not only a variety of styles and remarkably different producers, but also produces a sound that showcases Snoop's durability and versatility.

To survive for more than 14 years in a rap game, Snoop has developed an uncanny ability to stay witty -- despite sometimes losing his lyrical consistency of the early years -- well into his mid-30s, when most rappers realize it's too late to bow out gracefully.

On this album, Snoop has made a return to his early years riding with the Rollin' 20 Crips, turning the disc and the music on it into a medley made almost specifically for those dressed in blue and gray. Working with the Neptunes allows Snoop much of the leeway and creative space to define a new but solid sound that is coming to be understood as Snoop in the new millennium.

The two Neptunes cuts on the album are definitely more aggressive songs that showcase the tugboat noise that is becoming one of the signature sounds of the producing duo. On both "VATO," a track that brings together two of the West's most recognizable voices, Snoop and B-Real, and "10 Lil' Crips," Snoop demonstrates that he is a Godfather of Gangster Rap.

"True legends/ two steppin'/ on you peasants/ what you'all thought/ you'all goin' to need about two vests/ Because when he plug/ I plug," he raps over "LAX" with the Notorious B.I.G. providing the "Cali?" sample.

Dr. Dre produces four songs that deliver different yet perfectly crafted cuts for Snoop.

Utilizing the same Dido sample that crafted the hit "Stan" for Eminem, Dre reworks the piece for a cautionary tale about the travails of Snoop's home turf on the amazingly neck-snapping "Round Here." "It ain't safe to leave the house ..." Snoop softly serenades on the chorus.

The Beast from the East, Long Beach that is, has definitely proved why he is the blue-blood in the rap game.

-- Moustafa Ayad