Jay-Z - The Greatest MC (1994)

Shawn Corey Carter was born on 4 December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and was raised in Marcy Houses, a public housing project in Brooklyn's Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father abandoned the family, and so he and his three older siblings were raised by his mother. He attended Eli Whitney High School and George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, both in Brooklyn, and then Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, but he didn't graduate, dropping out during his sophomore year at Trenton Central High School. According to his interviews and his lyrics, he sold crack cocaine after leaving school, and was shot at three times during this period. Known as "Jazzy" around the neighborhood, he later adopted the stage name "Jay-Z" in homage to his mentor Jaz-O. He can briefly be heard on several of Jaz-O's early recordings in the late 1980's and early 1990's, including 'H. P. Gets Busy', 'The Originators' and 'Hawaiian Sophie', and he also became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990's. He first became known to a wider audience on the posse cut 'Show And Prove' on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album 'Daddy's Home', with Jay-Z being referred to as Big Daddy Kane's hype man during this period. However, Kane explains that he did not fill the traditional hype man role, and was instead basically making cameo appearances on stage when Kane left the stage to change outfits. He appeared on a popular song by Big L, 'Da Graveyard', and on Mic Geronimo's 'Time To Build' in 1995, which also featured early appearances by his former Murder Inc. colleagues Ja Rule and DMX. His first official rap single was 'In My Lifetime', which was released with an accompanying music video in 1995, but before this he had recorded a number of demo tracks which he passed around in the hope of finding a record deal. With no major label prepared to give him a deal, he sold burned CDs out of his car, and with Damon "Dame" Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke, created Roc-A-Fella Records as an independent label in 1995. After striking a distribution deal with Priority, Jay-Z released his 1996 debut album 'Reasonable Doubt', with beats from acclaimed producers such as DJ Premier and Super DJ Clark Kent, and an appearance by The Notorious B.I.G. The album reached number 23 on the Billboard 200, and was generally favoured by critics, kick-starting a career which would make him one of the biggest rap stars on the planet. But everyone has to start somewhere, and so here are those 1994 demos, collected together and named after the opening track of the album, which shows that even at the start of his career, Jay-Z knew exactly what he wanted to be. 

Track listing

01 The Greatest MC
02 What's In A Name? 
03 Get Off My Dick (feat. Sauce Money) 
04 Understand Me 
05 Pass the Roc 
06 Broken English & Drug Sellin' 
07 Rippin' It Up, Right? (feat. Sauce Money) 
08 Nuttin' But Love (feat. Sauce Money) 
09 Under Pressure (feat. Sauce Money) 
10 Behind The Ropes (feat. Sauce Money)