Jay-Z & Roc-A-Fella – Funk Flex Freestyles (Hot 97, 2001)
State Property – Funk Flex Freestyles (Hot 97, 2002)
Jay-Z & Roc-A-Fella – Angie Martinez Freestyles (Hot 97, 2002) *LINK FIXED*

“Average Cat” is just sad. Beans should have either gone for Jigga’s jugular or just left this dispute between him and the Roc-A-Lawyers. The Game opened the door for these scorned lover rants disguised as diss records and that ain’t cool to be.

But the problem is bigger than just the public airing of family drama, it’s that Beans mistook the Roc for family at all. (Jay predictably responded by talking business.) But can you blame him. Listening to all these old freestyles it certainly sounds like a familial bond Maybe Jay changed his pitch up when he became a business icon a few years later. Or maybe he was just a great actor. Whatever the case these tapes remain some of the better radio ciphers of the decade.

Shouts to whoever ripped these back then, in all their 128 kbps glory. Hit the jump for more commentary and the rest of the video clips of the first session, courtesy of Cipha Sounds. (more…)

What a difference thirteen years and one superfluous umlaut makes. (more…)

In case you missed it, Westcheddar recently unearthed this monumental 1999 footage of Jay-Z and the Roc-A-Fella click performing at The Tunnel. I’m just sitting down with it now. Highlights include a Beanie freestyle, Jay breathlessly rocking the first verse of “Jigga What? Jigga Who?” with no hype man and an early performance of “So Ghetto.” It’s almost surreal to think of these guys, a bunch of sweaty dudes in t-shirts and beanies talking about murdering you, were seen as “jiggy” in this era. This was what a concert performed by one of the biggest pop stars in the world looked like. Imagine Kanye or 50 or Wayne playing such a relatively small capacity venue (and to an almost completely black audience) in New York City in 2009.

You can’t. Because Jay-Z destroyed that. He made rappers turn corporate, made rappers tabloid fodder, made rappers interested in anything but rapping raps for rap fans. And now all we have are these youtubes. More after the jump. (more…)

Youtube comments survey:
“do jay ever think about how many people he step on to get to the top jay has 1 friend bleek ” – philly1537

“he killed da singin and didn’t need the autotune bullshit, that’s an artist right there.” – phillypinno215

“Watching “Flipside” then watching this video is sad….the game’s changed. ” –
TruthxAR

Bun B rolls through the Houston stop on Jay’s Heart Of The City Tour. The crowd picks up the slack on Pimp’s verse. Really touching stuff.