But Bleek was a sturdy role-player with nice intensity and toughness. Memphis Bleek is now notorious as Jay’s understudy and failed-project hypeman - the friend who stayed one hit away his whole career. Part of that is just the strength of the Roc-A-Fella bench. But The Dynasty doesn’t deserve the footnote status that you might give something like D12’s Devil’s Night or the St. The Dynasty is Jay at his most magnanimous, trying to build a franchise by dishing out assists. The thinking was that it wasn’t really a Jay-Z album it was Jay putting his crew on and sharing his spotlight. When The Dynasty came out, it gained a bit of a rep for being a minor work. When OutKast finally got around to releasing another album, Jay-Z was a guest. Even if you resent it, you still have to admire it. But it’s also a superstar using the system to his advantage - LeBron James putting his head down and barreling his way to the rim because he knows that nobody’s going to call the charge. If those stories are true, then that’s pure pop-chart chicanery. There were rumors that Jay had gamed the system, filling warehouses with unsold CD copies of The Dynasty. OutKast made the better album, and Stankonia ultimately sold more. Stankonia sold 523,000 - still gold in a week, but not quite enough to dethrone Jay-Z.

The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, the Jay-Z album that turns 20 tomorrow, sold 558,000 copies in its first week, just enough to debut at #2. This time, it was a lot closer, but Jay-Z still won that week-one battle.

OutKast were unleashing Stankonia, the shattered masterpiece that would mark the duo’s final ascent to immortality. Jay was coming out with a victory-lap album - one that he’d planned to release as a Roc-A-Fella crew LP before the heads of Def Jam convinced him that he’d sell a whole lot more copies with his own name on the cover. This time, though, things were different. That time, Jay had easily outsold OutKast, though both acts did big business. 2: Hard Knock Life and Aquemini entered the world. Jay-Z and OutKast had shared a release date before: September 29, 1998, the day that both Vol. At this point, Jay wasn’t going to let anyone knock him off - not even OutKast. Carter had come out at the end of 1999, and it had still been dominating New York in summer 2000. He’d rapped on Mariah Carey’s single “Heartbreaker” and, in the process, scored his first crossover chart-topper. Jay had walked away from a felony stabbing charge with probation. In the last months of 2000, Jay’s magisterial swagger was at its peak. Then he slows his voice down, emphasizing every word, making sure you remember: “I. “Please, repeat after me, it’s only one rule,” says Jay-Z.

Jay z the dynasty roc la familia intro