The Jacka had many strengths as an artist: a gift for melody and songcraft, the ideal rapper voice, unflappable swagger, and a sixth sense for beat selection that was neither trend-hungry, nor overly “left field.” But the centerpiece of his music was his writing. Whether on his “classic” albums, his spottier unofficial records, or guest verses for the many Bay Area artists with whom he would collaborate, his lyrics often reward close reading.
One reason was the evocative power of his imagery, which would jump out in three-dimensions: His gun doesn’t shoot, it sounds “like thunder,” or pops “like meat in the pot frying.” The coke isn’t simply strong, it wakes you up “like a clip to your face.” If you don’t do coke, he’ll wake you up “with a bang through the windshield.” His writing had a three-dimensional punch, his actions a kinetic force.
At the same time, Jacka was a subtle writer, one for whom style and content were closely intertwined. There’s an internal consistency to the Jacka’s output; like 2Pac and other street rap auteurs, every verse reflected upon who he was as a coherent personality; there was no cynical cycling through song “types,” creating conscious records that balanced the street. Instead, everything was fully integrated through his own persona. This meant even a quick 16 on a song like 2007’s “Mob Shit”—from his unofficial The Jack of All Trades—would be as consistent with his worldview as more self-evidently “conscious” material. After three other unnamed rappers spit aggressive verses (“Block life, nigga fuck a job, bust raps or them straps, hit licks and rob!”), the Jacka enters rapping as a boastful Cali hardhead: “I scrape the streets, fuck peace, I got hella shit that’ll leave you hella stiff.” But the verse ends unexpectedly, twisting suddenly from threats into existential after-effects:
Got your brains on the 7-inch screen
I woke up this morning so yo I know it’s not a dream
Now I gotta shower for an hour
No trace of the gunpowder,
No trace of the rallo
Cleaning out bottles of Remy just to hide the thought
Of this nigga laying on his back leaking a river.
And it ends on that note. Notice the subtle poetic shift from cleaning up physical evidence to cleaning out the bottles of cognac, ending with a stark image the liquor can’t erase. There’s no didactic explanation that killing is bad; after all, in the world the Jacka is writing from, killing is simple reality, not something that can be hectored into non-existence. But what he can do is rob it of its glamor.
This realism is at times incredibly discomforting: It’s difficult not to wonder about the Jacka’s own history, and the psychological scars with which he wrestled. He seems uninterested in exaggerating his own story—occasionally emphasizing that his one year behind bars wasn’t even real time—which only serves to underline his transparency. The distance between this humble approach and the terror of his experience creates a powerful emotional impact. One verse (which has also appeared on a collaborative record with Akron, Ohio, rapper Ampichino), from Broad Daylight‘s “Coulda Did Better,” sketches his torment in vivid terms:
The people wanna lock a nigga up cuz I’m young and I’m lethal
Attempted murder on a cop, all it did was feed my ego
Seen a generation rot pushing hop through a needle
Generate the block with a plug from Mexico
Put it in a box, overnight the shit to Frisco
I been through a lot, first time I shot a pistol
Wasn’t in the air, but I wish it could have been so
‘Stead of in a man with the same color skin tone