By the time Jay-Z released Reasonable Doubt in 1996, President Clinton had been elected to a second term, and his promises of post-LA riot change had given way to legislation that brought massive prison growth, the "end of welfare as we know it," the rise of workfare and corporate globalization. It's no coincidence that "Politics as Usual," the title of one track, was New York City slang for the drug game. On "Where I'm From," off In My Lifetime (1997), he rapped, "Government? Fuck government. Niggas politic themselves."

Jay-Z met the economic expansion of the 1990s--unleashed by corporate consolidation and free-market globalization--by making his pop slicker, dabbling in world-pop sounds and creating bigger, more seductive fantasies of success. (About this time, a group of rappers from the housing projects of New Orleans called the Cash Money Millionaires introduced the word "bling" into the lexicon.) Yet he also used civil rights imagery to buttress his self-mythology. No longer claiming to represent merely the Marcy Houses but also "the seat where Rosa Parks sat, where Malcolm X was shot, where Martin Luther was popped," he even called himself "the soul of Mumia." With these comparisons, Jay-Z not only flattered hip-hop's sense of itself as an insurgent culture but claimed--with typical braggadocio--a place for himself alongside icons of the black freedom struggle. Clearly there was much more behind the game face he was showing.

Corporate media's massive economies of scale favor a drastically limited scope of rap archetypes that, not coincidentally, traffic primarily in stereotypes of black sexuality and criminality. Labels make fewer signings, so there are fewer "types" to represent. Furthermore, those signings tend to fill old boxes: the party girl in furs and stiletto heels, the gunslinger at odds with rivals and cops, the crack dealer on the corner. Jay-Z admitted as much on The Black Album, a record that led one of his shrewdest observers, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, to call him a "confidence artist." But he claimed simply to be giving the people what they wanted: "I've dumbed down for my audience and doubled my dollars," he said on "Moment of Clarity." "They criticize me for it, yet they all yell, 'Holla!'"

So Kingdom Come finds Jay-Z struggling to figure out, as he asked on The Black Album, what more he can say. Gone are the drug dealer stories. The hustler is no longer on the corner. In a dedication to his old jailed friends, beautifully sung by John Legend, called "Do U Wanna Ride?" the mention of coke is product placement for the cola, not just the illegal product cut and cooked with baking soda.

On the record's emotional set piece, "Lost One," Jay-Z's trademark flow fails him, and he stumbles badly. When he disses and dissects his former Roc-A-Fella partners in the first verse, he rides the rhythm easily. But over the next two verses--about problems in his relationship with Beyoncé and about his deceased nephew--he sounds tongue-tied. It's a clue that this restless hustler is no good at endings.

Jay-Z sounds most comfortable rapping over bombastic tracks by Just Blaze, a young New Jersey producer with a gift for taking familiar beats and classic hip-hop breaks and flipping them into arena-sized anthems. But hip-hop's most artistically expressive tension comes from the underdog's striving to become top dog. As a cocky teen, Def Jam's first star, LL Cool J, once said, "Even when I'm bragging, I'm being sincere." But CEO Jay-Z is now a 37-year-old, straining for relevance with a new refrain, "30 is the new 20." Heard over a bench-warmer beat by the 41-year-old Dr. Dre on "30 Something," it's the least convincing line he's ever uttered. When he boasts about collecting passport stamps, working stock portfolios and buying Birkin bags for Beyoncé, he is no longer endearing. The man who once apotheosized "urban aspiration" is beyond reach.

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