Gerald D. Garrett Jr. 2010-03-04

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

reasonable doubt is a classic. excellent lyrics, excellent beats. my favorites are in order. bring it on, coming of age, dead presidents 2, friend or foe, 22 twos, can i live, d'evils, regrets, feeling it, brooklyn's finest, cashmere thoughts,politics as usual, can't knock the hustle and finally ain't no and can i live 2. they all excellent from first to last. dead presidents, errie beat great, very great. bring it on, another timesless classic. and coming of age, i love it.

G. H. D. lll 2009-11-25

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Instead classic, great songs, unforgettable lyrics, and one of his best albums. Im glad he made a song with Biggie Smalls Brooklyn's Finest. What else can you say about this album. Top 5 songs Brooklyn's Finest, Can I live, Can't Knock The Hustle, Politics As Usual, and Dead Presidents II

Mikell Lawson 2009-09-04

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

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C. Luckner 2009-07-22

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

This album is credited by most as "Jay-z's best" although I like Vol.1 better I have to say that when I first heard this album, I thought it was great. But after listening to it years later it is really not a timeles classic that most portray it as. This album is filled with Jay-z's fake braggadocio hustler persona while he narrarates his dope-selling endeavors on top of soft, jiggy ballroom beats. Their is nothing quite creative on this album, nothing original at all.

The concept is a simple one of a NY street hustler turned millionaire who brags about how much money, cars, hoes, he has and is used throughout the entire album and every other album he has put out. His rhymes are weak and his delivery is a knockoff version of Das EFX as well as his album concept which is stolen from Raekwons Cuban Linx and Nas' It Was Written and THE FIRM.

As a true hip hop fan since 1992 I have to say Jay-z is completely overrated. His two best albums Reasonable Doubt and Blueprint are both soft and full of the same formula that has brainwashed so many into calling him the "G.O.A.T." Jay-z isn't even in my top ten and lyrically his rhymes and freestyles are wack, and I can name 10 rappers off the top who can lyrically destroy him.

1. NAS (G.O.A.T.)
2. Biggie
3. GZA
4. Jadakiss
5. Ghostface
6. Eminem
7. Kool G Rap
8. DMX (in his prime)
9. AZ
10. Canibus

Quit being fooled about how much money Jay-z has, how many businesses he owns, and who his wife is, he is a fraud and has never helped hip hop out any more than he has hurt it. I'm not hating just speaking the truth after hearing so many great albums such as "liquid Swords," "illmatic," "Enter the Wu," "4,5,6," and so many others, I cannot compare any of Jay-z's work to any of the greats. If you want some real hip hop, look into the names I posted above and also 2pacs "Me Against the World," and turn away from this garbage trend that Jay-z, Kanye, and Lil Wayne is throwing in our faces.

J. Brastad 2009-07-17

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

It was my second try at "Reasonable Doubt"

I tried to get into it in college back in 2000 or 2 but I got as far as downloading a crap quality of "Brooklyn's Finest" and all I could hear was Biggie murdering Jigga over some cheaply recorded digital fuzz. And after four and a half minutes the Nas fan in me lost patience and interest..and the sixteen songs became a fraction of hundreds I never listened to.

And now five years later, after going back into my mid-90's NY Renaissance albums (which by the way, is TRULY hip-hop's golden age) I realize that this is a great album. And it's not even quite about the rhymes (delivered with cleverish confidence) or the production (brilliant), no "Reasonable Doubt" is amazing because of the hunger, which envelopes every possible aspect of it and tickles the brain like a parasitic drug.

Back in those years when the West was scoring the big sales and to make it in New York was to have the connects, be a street playa and be considered the next best thing, the competition lingered both on presistent adaptation and keeping all credibility. Classics were churned out like a Hollywood assembly-line: "Hard to Earn", "Stunts, Blunts and Hip-Hop", "Down With The King", "Main Ingredient", "Midnight Marauders", "36 Chambers", "Ready To Die", "Enter Da Stage", "Livin' Proof", "Wrath Of the Math", "Breaking Atoms", "Stakes Is High", "Built For Only For Cuban Linx", "The Score", "Reachin'"....and of course, "Illmatic" the watershed album.

Yet by late 96, you could sense the future of rap and the it's unavoidable nudge in the materialistic direction, with the P.Diddy produced sections of BIG's albums putting the city back on the money map. Jay, a known freestyle and battle rapper, after a stint selling crack, jumps on that nudge and develops a persona somewhere between Biggie's soulful strike-it-rich gangstaisms' and Nas' young weary-eyed ghetto observant old-major. In a way Jay is more witty than both, albeit substituting an even higher degree of swagger in place of vulnerablity. But the infectiousness that ultimately ties the three together is no doubt a surefire knowledge of their music's history and a hunger to produce a classic debut.

And of course, it is the Primo productions that stand out the most. He gels with Jay's sick storytelling on the brief-but-amazing "Friend or Foe". "D'Evils" comes on like a street-bass onslaught amongst the studio slickness, and its impossible not to ride the groove of "Cashmere Thoughts" (by DJ Clark Kent, whose since worked extensively with that model MC of the Renaissance, Rakim).

Objectively, it's very hard (as maybe even the man himself has said), to see Jay-Z ever again recording an album like this one. It's hard to think like a starving artist intent on making-or-breaking a dent in the game if you're a cash sweating billionaire. The fantasy is always easier to relate. But you can sense in this album the game itself changing, and Jay-Z's trying to hustle with the best of em'.

He's on the corner, trying to sell his stature (in his mind), shouting-out his affiliations, illegal-cigar curling, tippin' his hat. Knowing that if Jay-Z the ultimatum-boasting hustler can make it as Jay-Z rapper, than Jay-Z himself can one day become commodified.