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Film
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Fade to Black
Much like another classic of the farewell genre, Martin Scorsese’ The Last Waltz, this documentary captures the genius of Jay-Z by deftly mixing studio and concert footage.
Monday, November 8, 2004
By Todd Gilchrist
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Paramount Classics
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A force to be reckoned with
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Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” is not in fact a sequel - official or otherwise - to the Beatles’ 1968 “White” opus. Rather, it is the final album from the in-the-news rapper as well as the indirect basis for Fade to Black, a new documentary that captures the process of an entertainer saying goodbye to an industry while still at the top of their game. Imagine if Tom Cruise or Steven Spielberg decided to shoot a tell-all documentary during the filming of their upcoming War of the Worlds remake and begin to get an idea of the rather unusual context of this effort.
Jay-Z is quite possibly the most successful rapper in the history of the genre; his music found mainstream appeal early in his career (with hits like “Hard Knock Life” and “Can I Get A...”), and his combination of irresistible beat-mining and dexterous lyricism has yet to be matched by anyone else in the rap industry. He remains one of the few rappers whose lyrics are almost always decipherable to even the casual listener, and certainly one of the very few that, even if can’t quite make out his meaning, you certainly get the gist of his feelings.
All of which makes Fade to Black that much more revelatory. Opening with concert footage and then receding into the process of putting together his last album, Jay at once demonstrates his penchant for pleasing the crowd and leading them to their next destination. He is nothing if not a trailblazer, and as the studio footage reveals, he’s not an artist who takes the process of making music lightly.
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Paramount Classics
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Former tourmate R. Kelly
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The thing about this particular hip-hop documentary I fear may be overlooked is the fact that it delves deep into the creative process, unlike almost any film before it, to show where and how producers and rappers come together to make a hit song. In rap, there are no magic chords or simple, familiar words that can be spoken to signal a classic in the making; it’s an exclusively intuitive process, and whether a producer’s music is industry standard or setting new precedents, it seldom always succeeds.
Take, for instance, the footage involving Jay’s interactions with Pharrell Williams, one half of the hip-hop super-production squad The Neptunes; Jay listens to several tracks young Williams provides and discards them all. Under other circumstances, the white-hot producer could dish up a few knockoff tunes based on past hits, but with Jay-Z, nothing standard will suffice, and it isn’t until much later that he discovers what that intangible feeling is that Jay seeks for his farewell tracks.
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Paramount Classics
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Beyonce Knowles
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It’s a telling moment when Pharrell addresses the camera and explains that he wasn’t around to collect the minor chords that would make Nas’ “The World Is Yours” into the classic it is commonly regarded as today. Unlike rock bands, who seem to think only in terms of musical formulae, Williams and several of the other producers speak in cinematic terms, thinking of songs visually, as if ready for movie scenes, or at the very least, terrific music videos. This is later proven again when up-and-comer Kanye West tells Jay that the album will be his Carlito’s Way - a comeback just as he’s leaving for good - and gives the best his seemingly indefatigable production slate has to offer.
Even stalwart Virginia producer Timbaland can’t catch a break when he makes his bids; offering cuts that sound like submerged jungle rhythms, Jay disses and dismisses one track after another until he finds the right instrumental (which would later become the irresistible “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”), at which point Timbaland leaps in front of the console and bounces like a man possessed. Even though few of the “Black Album” tracks actually appear in finished form in the film, studio moments like these are brilliantly interspersed with the concert footage, providing a still and introspective contrast to the invigorating energy of the Madison Square Garden show Jay sold out.
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Paramount Classics
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Mary J. Blige
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Unsurprisingly, there are countless memorable moments on stage as well: Mary J. Blige, singing so forcefully during her collaboration on “Hail Mary” that even Jay is caught off guard; Foxy Brown’s wardrobe malfunction during “Ain’t No N*gga;” Beyonce showing that only Jay is ready for her jelly with “Crazy in Love;” Ghostface Killah borrowing hubcap-sized medallions from Slick Rick for his duet with Beyonce on “Summertime;” Missy’s exuberant refrain “Is that your bitch?” on Memphis Bleek’s song of the same name; and Jay’s unforgettable re-interpretation of LL Cool J’s classic love rap “I Need Love” that serves as prelude for his own “Big Pimpin’.”
But the most revealing moments again are in the studio: Rick Rubin, marveling with Beastie Boy Mike D at Jay’s ability to remember lyrics without writing anything down; Pharrell, calling Jay on the phone with the solution to all of their mutual problems (the minor chord-laden “Allure”); and Jay, asking plaintively why he shouldn’t record not an album or even a full song, but just a single verse addressing poverty and crime (“It’s not what people expect from you,” his opponent counters).
During a recent FilmStew interview with The Roots’ drummer ?uestlove, who provides backbeats for Jay on stage, he attempted to explain to me the trouble most engineers have creating the prototypical ‘boom-bap’ sound that rap fans love in their favorite hip-hop tracks. “There are certain tricks that you have to know as a hip-hop producer to make the music that much grittier and dirtier,” he told me, suggesting that the distance between the two sounds was much further than the hyphen that accompanies the words in print.
Whether or not I ever discover that connective tissue for myself, Jay-Z knows it backwards and forwards, and Fade to Black illuminates the gap better than anybody’s brightest whites ever could.
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