i gotta admit jay z is well good, even if he's the epitomy of materialistic rapping. if u look past that though, his flow's interesting, and his beats are good. nebody saying the black album was shit obviously doens't own it either. it's a good album, certainly his best in my opinion. as for the retiring thing, he'll still be running rocafella, so he'll still make vast wads of cash from his current extreme talent lineup (besides caamron, the dumbass wannabe drugdealer that he is. him and his diplomat tossers).envied talent is right in saying everybody's gotta stop sometime. can u imagine nebody wanting to keep rapping till they're 60 or something? even though an old jay z would be amusing, i'm sure he would have lost his creative spark by then. with a large number of talented people ready to try and take his place on his own record label, i'm sure now is probably a good time to retire. better to go out on a high note than potentially get out shined by his own employees, specially if he lost his creative talent and dropped a wack album.