“The Black Album” hit stores on Friday with a fury, but not without some serious competition, in fact just about as serious as you can get. G Unit (50 cent and his crew) also dropped their debut album together this last Friday. The head-to-head release of these two albums is a very interesting thing, because with Jay-Z we have a seasoned veteran’s last run around, and on the other side the young 50 cent, whose last album sold more records than any of Jay-Z’s previous releases. The good thing is, for hip-hop fans, both albums are dope, so we win both ways. To add to that, the two albums are also very different, which gives us the ability to enjoy each during different moods.

The G Unit is far more marketable to the youth and shines in the same way that 50 cent’s last album did, with serious production. But the production is not as one-sided as on 50’s album, which was headed up by Eminem and Dr. Dre. This album has production credits from a wide list of different producers, including some who you wouldn’t think would be working with G Unit because of their past styles, like Hi Tek and No ID. The reason is because, when I think of G Unit, thoughts of Common, Mos Def and Talib Kweli don’t also rush into my head. No ID was responsible for the greater part of the production on Common’s second and third album “Resurrection,” and “One Day it Will All Make Sense,” both commonly regarded as his best works. Hi Tek was responsible for a large part of the “Black Star” album and the entire “Reflection Eternal” album with Talib Kweli.

But the combination works and G Unit sounds real nice over these varied beats. This also gives them fewer limitations on how they sound. They are not constricted to one type of flow. Jay-Z on the other hand went all out on his Black Album and enlisted only the best of the best from his resources. This of course would include Pharrell and Chad Hugo, as the Neptunes team up with Jay twice on the album, as well as twice with Kanye West, Rocafella’s prodigy producer. Jay Z also had Eminem team up with him again and give him another fired up track reminiscent of the sound that Eminem gave Nas for “The Cross” on the God’s Son album. But if anything shines the most on this album, it’s the producers that Jay hasn’t worked with before like Rick Rubin and 9th Wonder, who each produce one of the two best songs on the album (in our humble opinions).

Rick Rubin, who has produced albums for big name artists like the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Black Crowes, as well as being a co-founder of the label Def Jam, hit Jay-Z up with one of the best beats I’ve heard Jay rhyme over in years. The sound is similar to what I would associate with the Def Jux style of beats but also old school Beastie Boys, very different and hot at the same time. Jay spit some serious fire over the track as well, and it wasn’t just your run of the mill braggadocio’s rhyme either, it had something to it, a story to tell about real subjects.

The 9th Wonder collaboration is most impressive because until this past year 9th Wonder was just another underground producer as obscure as the next dope but unknown underground producer, oh, except for one thing, that 9th Wonder just might be one of the sickest producers ever to bless tracks. The track he gave to Jay-Z, track nine, entitled “Threat” (hand picked by Jay out of many others supplied by 9th Wonder) is no exception. In fact these tracks blew away Jay-Z so much that it left him wondering where 9th Wonder had been all these years, when he could have been hitting the boards for him albums ago. Overall the album is just as good as we expected, and definitely going to be on bump for a while in our systems.

The best thing about last Friday, and 2003 for that matter, is that it’s been a long time since we’ve had weeks like this, where two dope albums come out on the same day, and so many sick albums are flooding the market. Years ago it used to be commonplace to have album after album come out, so much in fact as to make classic albums not stick out as much due to the great competition around it. While it’s true that it isn’t like that again yet, it’s as Q Tip once said on a track back in the day: “Competition’s good, it brings out the vital parts.” It’s definitely vital for an emcee to come hard today because the bar has been raised. Thank you Jay-Z, and I never thought I’d say this, but thank you 50.