Jay-Z - American Gangster

I didn't expect much from this one ater the mild disappointment with Kingdom Come . The video to American Gangster made a good + lasting impressin recently, so i went back to check out this CD with new confidence and it didn't disapoint me at all....
His rapstyle and delivery is in a class of his own - you hear that Lay-Z is in a zone and the lyics come from his dome directly to the microphone. His voice sits tight in the middle of the Stereo - Mix. A fantastic production + excellent mastering comes as a Bonus. The guests are well chosen, as usual : Lil' Wayne, Nas and his old buddy Beanie Sigel are on the harder tracks. Kanye West and Pharrel do appear on the more playful songs. Even his wife Beyoncè makes a few nice appearances here as a Background Singer.
What makes this album so fantastic is the music ! I never heard a Rap album with so much going on musically. The samples are sounding so familiar, that you often think HIT even before the song is thru. And then the producers : Diddy and the Hit Makers LV & SEAN C produced most of the stuff and their tracks sound so good. You have a lot of real instruments , a drummer and a guitar player; sometimes even a Horn section, Pianos and so on. To make this album even better there still are a hand full of hardcore tracks by Just Blaze (on the Beanie Sigel collaboration) DJ Toomp and others. The Neptunes and even Jermaine Duprie add their special flavour to the product (JD produced the Nas / Jay-Z Track) . This LP is easily twice as good as the rushed Kingdom Come, close to The Blueprint + on the same level as The Black Album.