In short: The Beef is over: Jay-Z AND Nas is the beginning of a new era… more on sohh.

Seems that the rumours are getting stronger and stronger…

- Jay-Z might announce a new album where he teams up with Nas
- kanYe West would be the executive producer
- This might even be the hot rumoured come-back album for Jay-Z

Rumours, rumours… what can we say? let us wait and see…

Any additional gossip on this?

Man, kanYe West knows how to draw attention… right after his release of Late Registration, at the NBC fundraising concert special he took the opportunity, skipped the text from the teleporter and went political at Bush. So extra discussions, which means some extra promo for Mr. West… so probably some extra attention to his latest album.

Long awaited, the follow-up of his smash debut album The College Drop-out is flying off the shelves.

Bought it myself on its release date, it has been on repeat on my iPod for some days now…
I must say. It is quite solid. It is catchy, it has some jewels of songs… rocs…

He does his thing again: Hooks from great “old” songs by big names (Bill Withers, Shirley Bassey, Curtis Mayfield) settled in well-flowing tracks, together with contradictional and conscious lyrics. And that, although not new, he does well. For some reason I can accept what he does, but still I wonder why he is hitchhiking on great artists while he appearantly has the talents to create his own stuff. That makes it somehow cheap.
In sound, it has improved and there are some sounds that needed some re-hearing before I could appreciate them. The synthesizer-like sounds. Considering the orchestration, using the string ensemble instead of Miri-Ben Ari is a big improvement (no diss). Instead of a raw sound it has created three very solid and profound tracks (‘Bring Me Down’,'Gone’ and ‘Celebration’).
His flow definitely improved, him trying to make some social and political points can only be appreciated, and then the co-ops he has on this album…

Though not in the same song, having Jay-Z and Nas on one and the same album, is quite an achievement. The list of the others is quite something: Brandy, Consequence, Cam’ron, Really Doe, Game, Keyshia Cole, John Legend, Lupe Fiasco, Jamie Foxx (the Ray-Incarnation), Paul Wall, GLC, Common and quite special for this album: Maroon5′s Adam Levine.

In all the commotion around his personality, I still think that although he might pipe down a little, kanYe is following the path he is paving himself and bloathing about… and in a way, that deserves some respect.

I sincerely hope that he starts creating more “own” music, if he succeeds in that, then he might come close to being as big as he says he is.