Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 27/11/06
Label: Roc-A-Fella

It was as inevitable a comeback as Muhammad Ali, the Australian cricket team or winter: sooner or later, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter was going to break the self-imposed retirement he had claimed was for good with the release of "The Black Album" three years ago. But "Kingdom Come" is not the emphatic declaration of supremacy it should - and, perhaps, could - have been.

Too often, Jay is treading water here. "Show Me What You Got", the first single, suffers from a desultory production by Just Blaze (who merely loops parts of Johnny Pate's "Shaft In Africa" theme and slaps some of Public Enemy's "Show 'Em What You Got" over the top), and an uncharacteristically uninspired lyric about - principally - a woman's bottom. "Lost One", one of the record's more intriguing lyrics which addresses Jay's split from Roc-A-Fella partner Damon Dash, is a retread of the Lauryn Hill song of almost the same name. It's not that he can't do spectacular covers - "99 Problems" was an Ice-T song - but there is less drive and originality here.

The best is saved for last, though the final pair of tracks do also emphasise the rest of the album's lack of bite. "Beach Chair" is a collaboration with Coldplay's Chris Martin and Johnny Buckland (though, with the whole LP mixed by Dr Dre, it is still a hip hop song, albeit one with rock atmospherics). In its first verse, he looks forward to a time when he has a daughter, and prays his enemies won't try to get at him through her; powerful stuff, undone slightly by the ill-fitting central metaphor (life is like a beach chair, apparently).

"Minority Report" is Jigga's response to the fall-out from hurricane Katrina's destruction of black New Orleans, and is one of the most considered and affecting lyrics of his career. It's fascinating in its contrariness: he talks about donating a million dollars to disaster relief agencies, then excoriates himself for taking the rich man's easy way out, as the money was given to the same failures who presided over the disaster and the inadequate response to it. This sort of pseudo-confessional writing, daring in its own way and fascinating in its intrinsic contrariness, is something he does brilliantly, and the lack of more of it on the record merely underscores the overall air of disappointment.

This is far from being a bad album - Jay has never made one of those, nor given the impression he is capable of doing so - but it rarely rises to the levels he has consistently reached. It may not sound like a record made by a label boss, but it does sound like a record made by someone aware that their label was in desperate need of a big hit, and that he is that label's biggest star. Hopefully, next time, he will find the time to add to his catalogue of masterpieces.

    by Angus Batey