News That Really Isn't

Likely unearthed some old Biggie and thus, has "new" rhymes to spit.

- Michelle Wie stunk. Again.

- USC is a dirty-ass program. Shocking.

- And the biggie (pun intended--this will likely wind up on a Def Jam album now)...Jay-Z is returning.

1) The first person who writes "Allow me/him to reintroduce my/himself" is getting shot.

2) The first person who claims that Jay-Z is back to save hip-hop is getting shot.

3) Feel free to make as many jokes as you'd like about Memphis Bleek.

4) Now Ludacris, Method Man, and all them are really gonna be pissed.

5) I find this annoying, to be honest. Sorry if that is sacrilegious or if it makes me a hater, an idiot, or worse, but I am kind of over Jay-Z. Black Album was mediocre; large swaths of the In My Lifetime collection aren't really that good; and while Jay's personality was and is intriguing and steeped in cool, at some point he became too obnoxiously self-aware and arrogant. In some ways, I feel like I am channeling all of the enmity that has likely built up among rappers who probably saw this whole retirement charade as a way for Jay-Z to hold hip-hop hostage: He would occasionally regularly descend from on high to drop a guest verse and lend credibility to some crappy rapper like Rick Ross; he was happy to let rumors fester that he was coming back; and his very public retirement but sustained presence allowed many people to, if they had nothing else to say, fall back on the old reliable argument that "the game" hadn't been the same since he left.

It all felt and now feels very contrived. And sort of worthless--what ultimately came from all of this? A great retirement concert? Yes. A lot of annoying-ass music put out by Def Jam? Yes.

If we're lucky, the ~three years that Jay has had "off" will have served as time for him to have gotten his shit together and to have generated ideas for another great record. Although bullshit like this Chris Martin news is not encouraging. And Lord help us all if we get another derivative Jay-Z/Beyonce collabo or some Mike Shennadoah/Linkin Park bullshit passed off as artsy musical exploration.

Excuse me if I'm not excited. This just seems like a media spectacle that will likely receive undue hype and result in creative disappointment. We'll get a lot of rhymes about being a CEO, shepherding along artists who went platinum, being above the fray of the hip-hop hoi polloi, spending long money and doing exclusive things...and then we can all weep as Jay-Z ultimately retires again. I can hardly wait.

There was a time--when Blueprint dropped and Kanye was still making hip-hop beats and Jay-Z was building toward the exaltation he now enjoys--that this kind of news would have been truly electrifying. But that was then, and then is certainly not now.