That it would have been the best concert you ever attended is a testament to the artists' spectacular performances that it feels like you're there anyway, watching every moment of call-and-response, every bounce of ?uestlove's bass drum, and every nuance of Jay's voice is a testament to the skillful direction of filmmakers Pat Paulson and Michael John Warren. Kelly, Pharell Williams, Freeway, Damon Dash, Ghostface Killah and Memphis Bleek, who set the stage ablaze with talent and energy that no compact disc could contain.

Back-up is ably provided by The Roots' drummer ?uestlove and the Illadelphonics, who contribute girlie choruses and rimshot riffs between verses, but their steadfast accompaniment is overshadowed by the likes of Missy Elliot, Mary J. Jay rumbles through 'Hard Knock Life,' 'Big Pimpin',' 'I Just Wanna Love U,' 'Izzo (Hova),' 'N*gga What, N*gga Who,' 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder,' 'Song Cry,' 'December 4th,' and '99 Problems,' amongst countless others, but he breathes new life into each tune, using every tool in his arsenal to reinvent the tracks. Imagine your favorite artist, all of his most creative collaborators, and all of their best songs collected on one stage for one night, and you can imagine about half of what transpired on the stage that night in November. The concert footage isn't chronological, either in terms of his releases or their order when performed on stage, but that matters little. What the concert accomplishes, even moreso than Jay's 2001 MTV Unplugged performance, is that it reveals the scope and depth his career assumed with each new effort, and shows just what his music meant to multiple generations of hip-hop fans. Looking back at my youthful naivete, I realize this is a guy who started out as a storyteller, a trend-setter, and a million-seller, just like Nas, his onetime fiercest competitor, and Notorious B.I.G., the industry's enduring source of inspiration, both of whom got their starts just years prior to his explosive debut. The film, which captures his farewell concert at Madison Square Garden in November of 2003, provides a great moment of reflection for rap fans who frequently seem to forget that artists seldom last longer than a hot single or two, much less a full-length album. Fade to Black, easily the best hip-hop documentary since The Show and one of the great concert films of all time, closes the book on a decade-long career, and proves that his fire is still burning, even on the eve of his retirement. Hard Knock Life, that I started to believe Sean Carter was anything more than a flash in the hip-hop pan.

With others, I was basically convinced of their merits from the first single I heard, but despite the natural appeal of 'Ain't No N*gga' from Reasonable Doubt, it wasn't until 'Can I Get A.,' the second single on his third album, Vol. But Jay-Z stands alone, for a number of reasons, the first of which being that I did not like him initially. As a person who gets plenty of music free, and whose taste I'd like to think is at least somewhat accomplished, this is no mean feat even Outkast and The Roots' record labels have provided me with promo copies from time to time. Jay-Z carries the almost singular distinction in my record collection as being one of the very few artists whose albums вЂ“ all of them вЂ“ I actually went out and bought.

Jay z fade to black documentary full