Me and my fam roll tight like The Firm...really?

David Ruffin really knew how to get to the core of bad emotions. I’m sitting here listening to the classic “So Soon We Change” and the mailperson (Kam is politically correct in '06) finally delivered my copy of the new XXL. The magazine took an in-depth look into the making of Reasonable Doubt, so how ironic is it that I’m looking at a Jay-Z cover story while listening to a song about a seemingly unbreakable bond suddenly falling apart?

When Jay dropped his smash debut in ’96, he brought a more believable flair to the New York “jiggy” era. The future King of New York formed a royal triumvirate with the flashy Dame Dash and silent killer Biggs that seemed like it would one day conquer the world. Eight consecutive platinum albums – six of them multi-platinum – later, it’s obvious that they did. But you know how the story goes. Royalty can only reign for so long before trouble arrives, and the Roc Dynasty collapsed just like every empire before it. There’s a reason people say kings must die; it’s an inevitable truth.

But still, I must ask why? Rome kept the party going for a millennia and a half. The Greeks, Ancient Egyptians, Colonial European powers – they all had centuries of rulership. How come Roc-A-Fella Records couldn’t even make it to the 10 year anniversary of Reasonable Doubt? We’ve been bombarded with theories and bullshit reasons to explain the split, but none have ever pleased my curiosity. Magazines have tried to analyze the situation, but even after hearing both sides of the story, I’m still left being unsatisfied with the conclusion. Maybe M. Night Shyamalan wrote the script for this Roc-A-Fella saga. And if you pay attention to headlines, whatever created the riff between Jay-Z and Dame/Biggs probably isn’t exclusive to their situation. There’s plenty of dissension going on in hip-hop. But this isn’t a hip-hop thing. David Ruffin was bucking heads with Otis Williams and the rest of the Temptations long before Kool Herc was scratching records in the Bronx. Hey, maybe it’s a black thing. No, wait; Van Halen and a long list of other white rock bands will confirm that’s not the answer either.

There are a lot of suspects in the deaths of the Roc and musical civility, but the assailant I’d put my Clue prowess on is conceit. All of the aforementioned empires collapsed because egos and alpha-male struggles prevented any chance of cooperation. Alexander the Great conquered the known world and his death caused mayhem when his generals fought each other for power. The Roc Familia conquered the music industry and couldn’t keep things together after The Black Album was released. What an unfortunate similarity. My guess is that a clash of egos killed the Roc, which is probably just as good as any other explanation since nobody wants to come clean about the end of the Jay/Dame/Biggs union. Even in their separate interviews for XXL, neither shed light on the situation. Dame even plainly states he doesn’t know why they couldn’t stay strong in his “Talking That Talk” feature.

I don’t even think I can listen to the shit [Reasonable Doubt] right now because I think things went so far the other way. At that time, what transpired now, we would’ve bet billions that it could have never happened. Back then, like, if we were to say, “Yo, in 10 years, Jay’s gonna do this and take the name, and he’s gonna be a part of Def Jam you guys, you know…” Like that would have never crossed our minds… It was all about friendship back then. I don’t know where that went.

The mystery shall continue, but I am grateful that I gained a lot of insight into a classic album. I just wish that I could have focused more on that instead of trying to figure out why the people who gave me Reasonable Doubt grew apart. And on a wider scale I’m trying to figure out why that seems to happen so often. Our generation – possibly more so than the ones before us – is so prone to bickering and narcissism that we can never sustain the greatness we build. We don’t suppress our egos; we flaunt and inflate them to the point that our heads are as big as Jason Kidd’s son. We turn our friends to foes so easily and just accept it as politics as usual.

As we appreciate the coming of age story that is Reasonable Doubt, we should try to at least succeed where d’evils caused its creators to fail – stay loyal to one another. Even though they couldn’t remain united, three young black men rose from nothing and conquered the world. You can’t knock the hustle of that.