How Jay-Zâs âVol. 3â Explained Rap Music in 1999âand Predicted Its Future
In the fall of 1999, Def Jam posted a billboard atop the intersection of Flatbush and DeKalb avenues in downtown Brooklyn to advertise Jay-Zâs new album. Fittingly, the blown-up cover image for Vol. 3 ⊠Life and Times of S. Carter depicted the rapper flanked by skyscrapers, peering downward. (Hov always did love a good metaphor.) He was now above the competitionâin his home borough, in New York City, and in hip-hop. By the time Vol. 3 dropped in late December, Jay-Z was rapâs undisputed ruler.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Two of the previous kings of hip-hop had been slain: 2Pac in Las Vegas in September 1996, and the Notorious B.I.G. six months later in March 1997. The following year, chart-topping debuts from DMX and Lauryn Hill were game-changers; X released a second album at the end of â98 that also went no. 1. Either he or Hill could reasonably claim the throne that year, but their reigns werenât built to last. For all his bark, X was a little too one-dimensional to keep in step with rapâs evolution. Meanwhile, Hillâs first solo album would also be her last.
Into this power vacuum stepped Jay-Z, who had already built momentum from his own no. 1 album in â98, Vol. 2 ⊠Hard Knock Life. As the pall cast by the deaths of Pac and Biggie cleared, Jay snatched the crown in 1999. Vol. 3 went no. 1, as did all nine of his subsequent solo releases. Beyond his transcendent skill, Jayâs nimbleness and ambition would become the hallmarks of a long-running monarchy. He hewed his sound to adapt to radio trends and collaborated with the right people at the right time. And he was ruthlessly competitive, on and off the mic, which only added to his longevity.
While Vol. 3 isnât regarded as Jayâs best albumâthat accolade is reserved for his debut or 2001âs The Blueprintâit does have a wide-ranging aesthetic that reveals the expansive kingdom that Jay-Z oversaw when he first assumed power. The South was rising. Dr. Dre returned. New disrupters were en route. And hip-hop in general was on the verge of going fully mainstream. Jay observed the terrain and adapted accordingly. From his very first words on the albumâYeah, I know you just ripped the packaging off your CDâto the bootlegged songs that were left off the final cut, Vol. 3 provides a perfect time capsule of rap as it headed into the new millennium.
Here, then, is a selection of songs from Vol. 3 that highlight where rap was 20 years ago and also where it was going.
âWatch Meâ (feat. Dr. Dre)
Any residue from the East Coast vs. West Coast conflict was mostly gone by 1999âtruthfully, the coastal rancor of the mid-â90s was always more of a Bad Boy vs. Death Row dispute. As those record labels waned, so too did any lingering beef. The deaths of Pac and Big set off an exodus of artists. Dr. Dre left Death Row in 1996 to start his own Aftermath Entertainment; two years later, Snoop Dogg fled to No Limit Records. In April â99, Mase quit Bad Boy to become a pastor, and Sean âPuffyâ Combsâs grip on radio playlists was loosening.
When the smoke cleared, Dr. Dre and Jay-Z emerged as the new leaders of their respective coastsâand, unlike their predecessors, willing collaborative partners. 1999 would be a huge year for Dre. In February, he hitched his wagon to a young white disrupter from Detroit, setting the stage for his second career as a record mogul. But not before dropping another smash of his own in November: 2001, his first solo album in seven years. As Dreâs new secret weapon, Eminem reprised Snoopâs breakout role on The Chronic with his own song-stealing performances on 2001. Track for track (and with apologies to Mos Def), itâs probably rapâs only undeniable classic from 1999.
Jay-Z had a hand in its success. He famously wrote Dreâs defiant comeback verses for âStill D.R.E.,â 2001âs lead single. For Jay-Zâs Vol. 3, Dre rapped the hook on âWatch Meâ over a pounding Irv Gotti and Lil Rob beat that sounded like one of Dreâs, reusing Jayâs lines from an old Biggie song. It wasnât an official East-West truce, but it felt like one.
âItâs Hot (Some Like It Hot)â
Speaking of disrupters: Eminem wasnât the only â99 newcomer who would one day dominate the charts with the assistance of Dr. Dre. For the Queens rapper named 50 Cent, however, the Dre partnership came a few years later. First was âHow to Rob,â an opening salvo that wasnât a mainstream hit, but featured lyricsâabout robbing every big-name rapper or R&B singerâthat instantly made 50 an industry villain. Jay-Z, of course, was one of 50âs many targets: âWhat, Jigga just sold like four milli, got something to live for / Donât want a n-gga putting four through that Bentley coupe door.â
âHow to Robâ served its purpose, as it drew the attention of rapâs new king. On âHova Song (Intro),â Vol. 3âs opening track, Jay responded: âMike Jordan of rap, outside Jay working / Now watch how quickly I drop 50.â Then, on the Timbaland-produced âItâs Hot,â he dropped the memorable dagger (which he premiered months before at Hot 97âs Summer Jam): âGo against Jigga your ass is dense / Iâm about a dollar, what the fuck is 50 cents?â Two punch lines donât constitute a real feud: Jay-Z saved his real missiles for a 2001 battle with someone closer to his level in Nas, who dropped two high-selling but mid-quality albums in 1999 and always remained a throne contender. As for 50? In 2000, he was the one who got shot up in a car. Three years later, alongside Em and Dre, he would rule commercial rap.
âSnoopy Trackâ (feat. Juvenile)
If 2001 was the most memorable rap album from 1999, then âBack That Azz Upâ was the yearâs most enduring rap song. It dropped as a single in February, after first appearing on Juvenileâs 1998 release 400 Degreez, which remains Cash Money Recordsâ best-selling album to this day. Off the strength of Juveâs âBack That Azz Upâ and a string of lesser 1999 hitsâB.G.âs âBling Bling,â Hot Boysâ âWe on Fire,â and a teenage Lil Wayneâs âTha Block Is HotââCash Money became the dominant force in Southern rap. The South had made inroads earlier in the decade, powered by collectives like Atlantaâs Dungeon Family and Memphisâs Hypnotize Minds, but New Orleans was the regionâs epicenter in â99, thanks to Cash Money and No Limit Records. The latter, however, was lauded more for the business exploits of its CEO, Master P, than for its musical output.
Cash Moneyâs breakthrough came with Juvenileâs 1998 single âHa.â As the song started traveling beyond the South, Jay recorded his own verse over Mannie Freshâs instrumental and sent it to Cash Money through its parent label, Universal. That unsolicited Jay verse was added to the official remix, and suddenly Juvenile was a bigger presence nationwide. The South may have been buzzing, but NYC was still the ultimate arbiter of rap cool. âAfter that,â said Juve of the remix in 2012, âI didnât have a problem doing nothing with anybody. I didnât have problems with all those companies who didnât know who I was.â The âHaâ remix set off a chain of NYC-South team-ups in â99, including the Ruff Rydersâ Juve-featuring âDown Bottomâ and Cash Moneyâs appearance on Noreagaâs second solo album. (Jay-Z also popped up on a No Limit recordâSilkk the Shockerâs âYou Know What We Boutââthat went nowhere.) On Vol. 3âs âSnoopy Track,â Juve and Jay-Z reunited on a loopy, flow-driven Timbaland rhythm that began with the Brooklyn rapper paying homage to the South: âThis is for my n-ggas down in Houston on candy paint / All my n-ggas in the Dirty South, Miami mayne / All my n-ggas in the ATL throwinâ dem âbows.â
To be clear, Jay-Z giving Juve the coveted NYC cosign on âHaâ was less an act of benevolence than it was opportunism. From touring down South, Hov wouldâve been aware of what local artists were popping in the clubs. His two songs with Juvenile, as well as his Vol. 3 smash âBig Pimpinââ with Texas duo UGK, were mutually beneficial collaborations. As Juve later put it: âWhen he did [the âHaâ remix], I was like, âOK, now Iâm really in New York.â For him it was the same way: âNow Iâm really in the South.ââ
Not for the last time, Jay identified a sonic wave to ride just as it was beginning to crest. In 2000, the Ruff Ryders and Cash Money would embark on a joint tour. By the mid-aughts, Cash Moneyâs Lil Wayne would stake his own claim to the king of rap title.
When the Bad BoyâDeath Row rivalry ended, another battle line formed: mainstream vs. underground rap. After Bigâs death, Puffy and Bad Boy forged ahead with an ostentatious, radio-friendly sound that took over playlists in 1997-98, now remembered as the âshiny-suit era.â In turn came an uprising from independent artists (and some major-label ones) who promoted artistic growthâor at least sharper lyricsâover naked greed. âReal hip-hopâ became an anti-mainstream mantra; âjiggy rapâ was its foil. At the forefront of the movement was the indie imprint Rawkus, which released El-P and Company Flowâs Funcrusher Plus (â97) and Black Starâs Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star(â98), two albums that became underground hip-hop canon. (Ironically, the crossover success of Mos Defâs â99 solo debut, Black on Both Sides on Rawkus, helped negate the distinction between mainstream and indie.)
Jay-Z was able to straddle the commercial-underground divide better than most, having risen to mainstream status after humble beginnings as an indie underdog. As Kelefa Sanneh wrote of Jay in a 2001 New Yorker profile: âMost people thought of Puffy and Biggie as oppositesâthe executive and the thug, the businessman and the artist, the pop star and the rapperâbut Jay-Zâs insight was to seize upon the avarice that united them.â Hov blurred the lines, making records that appeased both sides. That tensionâpop vs. rapâis a through line in Vol. 3, in a year when hip-hop and TRLwere strange bedfellows. On âCome and Get Me,â Jay admonished rap rivals who thought heâd gone soft: âI ainât cross over I brought the suburbs to the hood / Made âem relate to your struggle, told âem âbout your hustle / Went on MTV with do-rags, I made them love you.â And on the DJ Premierâproduced âSo Ghetto,â the B-side to Vol. 3âs lead single, Jay playfully reminded fans that success wouldnât change him: âWe tote guns to the Grammys / Pop bottles on the White House lawn / Guess Iâm just the same old Shawn.â
And where would Jay-Z debut âSo Ghettoâ for a television audience? On MTVâs New Yearâs Eve 1999 specialâsans the do-rag.
âIs That Yo Bitchâ (feat. Missy Elliott) [unreleased]
One of the best songs intended for Jay-Zâs Vol. 3 never made it to the final cut (but did to the U.K. version) because of a leak of the album that was widely bootlegged a month before its release. Jay-Z swapped out three tracks from the leaked album, including the âHard Knock Lifeâ soundalike âAnythingâ and an interlude meant to connect the âHova Songâ intro and outro. The third song, âIs That Yo Bitch,â would later appearârenamed âIs That Your Chick (The Lost Verses),â with added guestsâon Memphis Bleekâs 2000 album, The Understanding.
From this story line, a few narrative threads emerged. To begin with, 1999 was one of the last years of nondigital piracy, when leaks were burned onto physical CDs and peddled hand to hand by neighborhood hustlers. Once peer-to-peer networks like Napster and LimeWire entered the picture at the turn of the century, music piracy became a free-for-all that disproportionately affected hip-hop. Leaks were still damaging in the file-sharing era, but a global crime wave is much harder to stamp out than a local threat. âThere is no analogy between bootlegging and anything that happens in the streets,â explained Jay-Z in his 2010 book Decoded, âunless you count n-ggas going up in stash spots and straight robbing you.â
Jay-Zâs reaction to the Vol. 3 bootlegging snafu almost upended his reign before it began. At the release party for Q-Tipâs Amplified at Manhattanâs Kit Kat Klub on December 2, 1999, Jay was charged with felony assault for stabbing music exec Lance âUnâ Rivera, who had been suspected of the original Vol. 3 leak. âI was blacking out with anger,â he wrote in Decoded. Jay faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted, but ended up with a sweet plea deal: three years of probation.
Even after the murders of 2Pac and Biggie, violence was never far in the rap world, and especially in its capital city. Big L was gunned down on February 15 in Harlem; Freaky Tah of the Lost Boyz was killed on March 28 in Queens. In April, Sean âPuffyâ Combs and two of his bodyguards allegedly beat up Nasâs manager Steve Stoute in his office over a crucifixion scene from Nasâs âHate Me Nowâ video. And a few weeks after Jay-Zâs Kit Kat Klub incident, Puffy, his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and his protĂ©gĂ© Shyne were involved in a nightclub fracas that turned into a shootout. Puffy was found not guilty of all charges, but Shyne was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Still, these were all local disputes. By and large, it was a hopeful era in hip-hop, as the genre edged toward a new prosperity.
âThings That U Doâ (feat. Mariah Carey)
The Vol. 3 song that was the most blatant grab at radio airplay was also, unsurprisingly, one of the albumâs worst. âThings That U Do,â the Swizz Beatzâproduced second single, was a rare Hov brick, despite the Mariah Carey feature. Why did it underperform? In Rob Harvillaâs Ringer feature on LFOâs âSummer Girls,â he noted that âpop radio in 1999 had a disoriented, throw-shit-at-the-wall quality. ⊠Nobody knew exactly what worked, which meant, again, that anything might.â It was much the same on rap radio in â99, but it inspired more diversity in hip-hop rather than sheer novelty. With the absence of a surefire hit-making formula, this was an exciting time to listen to rap. The coastal hegemony had weakened, making room for the likes of Juvenile, the Roots, and Missy Elliott to shineââBack That Azz Upâ after âYou Got Meâ after âHot Boyz.â There was no single dominant super-producer, and thus no signature sound, allowing for a bevy of distinct regional flavors to share the airwaves.
Turns out âThings That U Doâ may have been a little ahead of its timeâJa Rule would go on to make plenty of hits following a similar sing-songy formula. (Or, possibly: âThings That U Doâ just plain sucked.) In any event, Jay-Z realized his mistake by quickly dropping a new Vol. 3 single: âBig Pimpinââ featuring Bun B and Pimp C from UGK. âIt didnât sound like anything else on the radio at the time, but I knew it was time to double down,â wrote Jay-Z in Decoded. And that was the right strategy to penetrate radio in â99.
âPop 4 Rocâ (feat. Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel & Amil)
For all of rapâs mainstream emergence in 1999, it wasnât a banner Billboard year. No rap songs made the year-end top 20. But even though rap had enjoyed greater commercial heights in the â90s, many of the biggest hits felt like genre anomalies: Coolioâs âGangstaâs Paradise,â Kriss Krossâs âJump,â Sir Mix-a-Lotâs âBaby Got Back,â and the like. At the end of the decade, rappers were building momentum on their own terms, eventually forcing pop music to assimilate to it. (In 2002, seven rap songs made the year-end top 20.)
Part of the momentum came in the form of added revenue streams: Signing new artists and starting a clothing line were usually the first two chess moves. Jay-Z, like Puffy before him, did both. Hovâs business acumen wouldnât become a major theme in his music until later, but Vol. 3âs âPop 4 Rocâ (and Amilâs 2000 single â4 da Famâ) doubled as brand-builders. On the latter song, Jay proclaimed: âWhat yâall about to witness is big business kid ⊠This is much more than rap, itâs black entrepreneurs / Clothing, movie, and films, we come to conquer it all.â The corporatization of hip-hop had begun.
The new king would lead the way. Much like Vol. 3âs place in Jay-Zâs oeuvre, 1999 wasnât hip-hopâs best year, but it was a pivotal moment of transition: the start of an ambitious new regime across an unsure landscape that would soon become more fertile than ever. Hov was ready to conquer. His next album needed no metaphor: He called it The Dynasty.
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