Why I Think Empire State of Mind Is An Important Song and Not Just A Fucking Great Song

Let's hear it for New York.

(Listen Here: http://www.ilike.com/artist/Jay-Z/track/Empire+State+of+Mind+%28feat.+Alicia+Keys%29)

Hip-hop love songs are typically startling by their very existence. (And I'm not including odes to Cristal, Cartier, or Candy Shops). I'm talking about honest, searching, love songs like the Beastie Boys' Open Letter to NYC. That's partly why Empire State of Mind strikes me in a different, deeper way than the awesome bassline groove of A Milli.

And I'm not even a huge fan of New York. I kind of prefer Philadelphia.

The thing is that we're now privy to Jay-Z's intimate vows of eternal commitement to the Big Apple--in sickness and in health. And his vows are stunning enough in their sincerity to put Beyonce on the defensive.

Jay-Z starts the track with the first verse bravado so typical of rap today. I mean, he might be Hova but he still has to show all the ways he wipes his marble floor with fools like Drake.

I'm the new Sinatra
And since I made it here
I can make it anywhere
(Yeah they love me everywhere)

But then, after the first mesmerizing, Alicia Keys-featured chorus (more on that later), Jay-Z starts on a litany of his city's best--his own list of My Favorite Things--and worst.

Welcome to the melting pot
corners where we selling rocks
Afrika bambaataa shit
home of the hip hop
yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back
for foreigners it ain't fitted, act like they forgot how to act
8 million stories out there and they're naked
city it's a pity half of y’all won’t make it

But the incredible thing about his rhymes is the way he spits them, imbuing you with his pride (uh huh, uh huh) until you're dancing around your bedroom with a fedora and your bulky stereo headphones, blissfully unaware that you're actually snowed-in somewhere in the Northwest.

Maybe that's just me.

The point is, Times Square could be my main street. Or, even better, those streets making me "brand new" could be the same streets I've alternately relished and resented for the last ten years. Jay-Z takes hometown pride to a different level from even Weezy and NOLA or the myriad MCs who call the ATL home. He doesn't just rap at you about his hometown glory, he surrounds you in it. Jigga lets you share in the pride, takes you along on a pretty intimate, heart-swelling tour of a day in his life and the life of his city.

The key there is the heart-swelling part.

You know how Alicia Keys' voice (God bless it) soars over this "concrete jungle where dreams are made of"? That's exactly the kind of acrobatics my stomach does. Or, to be grossly sentimental but slightly more accurate, my heart.

It's a heart-in-throat chorus, one that pushes you along in its ecstatic overtures on the fulfillment of dreams and endless possibilities.

In New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can’t do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
the lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York

I'll be damned if this song makes me feel downright optimistic. Possibly even to the point of foolishness.

I haven't felt this powerfully connected to the Big City since 9/11. And isn't it great, 9 years later, to find a new reason for celebrating the boundless potential of the Big Apple? I've certainly never felt this in love with the crowds and the steel and constant, frantic, forward-motion. But this song is propelling me and you and New York and, hell, this country into the next decade.

It's 2010 baby and Hova says we've got the world in front of us, wherever it is you call home.

Which is why I'm saying, in this scared-shitless climate, Empire State of Mind is not just great or timely or relevant--it's frankly a revelation.

Listen here:http://www.ilike.com/artist/Jay-Z/track/Empire+State+of+Mind+%28feat.+Alicia+Keys%29