What the hell happened to Memphis Bleek?

“a G? i’ll ride wit chu for free, i want the long term riches and bitches”



We all remember little Memphis Bleek riding shotgun with Jay-Z back on “Reasonable Doubt”, then setting off “Hard Knock Life” over some sick DJ Premier production, releasing a solo album, and subsequently, well, fading away. Why did the right hand man of the arguably the best rapper of the last decade fall so hard and could it be that Jay-Z himself is actually to blame?

With probably the best entrance to the rap game one could ask for, Memphis Bleek was featured on Jay-Z’s first album “Reasonable Doubt” as the corner boy Hov was mentoring on the classic track “Coming of Age”. He proved back then that he had the flow and the swag (before swag existed) to carry himself alongside one of the future greats of rap (even though most assume that Jay wrote his verse). While he was noticeably absent from Jay’s second album, he reappeared on the multi-platinum “Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life” to wake everyone the fuck up on the album’s intro. Along with another couple guest spots on the same album, it was clear that Memphis Bleek had the ability to build a legitimate career in rap, but could he ever step out of the shadow of Jay-Z and in doing so would he ever be accepted as anything more than a sidekick to the greatest rapper of our time?

Following the release of Jay-Z’s highest selling album to date “Hard Knock Life”, Bleek’s debut album was nothing short of a disappointment. So often in hip hop a top notch MC tries to put on his boys (we saw Nelly do this with the St. Lunatics) and so often that weed carrier is nowhere near as good as his mentor, that’s why he’s the weed carrier. “Coming of Age” (the album, strategically named after the song that introduced little Malik Cox to the world) was no different in the eyes of most fans. In fact the only singles that ever gained any ground were featuring other Roc-A-Fella artists, most notably Jay-Z as well as Beanie Sigel. Poor promotion, lazy work, and other factors may have been involved but at the end of the day no one was running to the store looking to scoop up the first Bleek solo album. It did go gold but this was at a time when the economy was booming and just about every rap album would sell at least 250,000 so gold was almost looked at as a failure. Luckily for Bleek he didn’t need solo success since he had the Roc-A-Fella label and Jay to hold him down but one can only imagine that it was difficult being next to the giant and not even coming close to measuring up.

In 2000, shortly after the compilation album “The Dynasty” was released by Jay-Z, Bleek’s next solo album surfaced, “The Understanding”. There could be any number of reasons for this but it doesn’t seem smart to try to jump start someone’s career by piggy backing their release on top of yours (as the Pharrell assisted “I Just Wanna Love U” was topping every chart in the industry and therefore would make Bleek’s album nothing short of completely missed). Few people noticed the growth from the debut and while the album again went gold, it’s assumed that it sold mostly based on Jay-Z’s guest appearances and the Roc-A-Fella label alone. Once again standing next to the giant proved to be a downfall.

A few years went by and Jay-Z released two Blueprints on the hip hop community, featuring all together one verse from Memphis Bleek. It seemed as though Jay was moving further and further away from his protégé, but without setting him up for any real success of his own. The year 2003 would be one of the most important years in rap as we saw Jay-Z retire from rap with his swan song, “The Black Album”. Released one month after was “M.A.D.E.”, the third album from the man who would be king. This was the first truly classic Bleek album. Featuring production from Just Blaze at the height of his game (and Kanye West) and a guest list that most rappers could only dream about (Jay-Z, T.I., Nate Dogg, Trick Daddy, M.O.P., Beanie Sigel and Freeway) the album could easily have been the torch passing from teacher to student if not for being completely overshadowed by the teacher himself. Again it’s hard to understand why Jay would follow up what was clearly going to be a huge record in “The Black Album” only a month later with this Bleek release, and even though there were references to the little man taking the place of the big man, it was as overlooked as any other Bleek album simply because he had already been labeled as nothing more than a weed carrier. It did sell a record 150,000 copies in its first week but never picked up any steam with the various singles and has since been forgotten by most. This was essentially the moment when it was undeniable that Memphis Bleek would never achieve the notoriety and success he deserved.

Two years later we were given “534”, a lazy and wasted album thrown together in the midst of the Roc-A-Fella split between Jay-Z and Dame Dash. In all honesty the only good track on the entire album was actually a Jay-Z solo called “Dear Summer”. From here we’ve seen Bleek fall into obscurity and while he continues to try to push forward on his own with Get Low Records, making mixtapes and signing artists, seeing him in a Garnier commercial just about sealed the deal for him to become milk carton status in XXL.

What we can take from this man’s career is the fact that no one is good simply because they are co-signed by a legend. At the same time, a legend’s weed carrier isn’t necessarily bad, but getting out of the shadow of the legend is extremely difficult and the artist usually suffers because of it. Would Memphis Bleek have even made a splash if not for Jay-Z extensively promoting him? That’s a question we will never be able to answer but at the end of the day there is no doubt that no one will forget the young dealer on “Coming of Age” and hopefully we never forget how he grew into the beast that slaughtered “Hand it Down”. Go pick up M.A.D.E. and put yourself in that Black Album mindstate again, and enjoy one more Roc-A-Fella masterpiece, and next time you see the name Memphis Bleek on something, an album, a mixtape, a single, don’t just brush it off but instead check it out and see how some sidekicks truly can make great music.