The Jay-Z album Liam Gallagher said should have been left in the “psychiatric chair”
The Oasis brothers have always had a problem with Jay-Z. Whether it’s him performing at a predominant rock festival or criticising his lyrical content, there’s constantly something negative coming from the Manchester pair. Liam Gallagher was particularly vocal about Hov following the release of an album he had no interest in.
In 2017, Jay dropped one of the most impressive albums of his career: 4:44. The project saw him link up with producer No ID for an LP filled with soul samples, which included Donny Hathaway and Nina Simone. From a lyrical standpoint, Hov was honest as ever, admitting he wanted to release an album “where I talk about the things that I’ve never talked about.”
The album discusses everything from his family life and relationship with Beyoncé to racism and stereotypes, but Liam wasn’t impressed. During an interview with Noisey, he stated he didn’t like Jay-Z’s confessional project and believed the lyrics should have been left only for a psychiatrist’s ears.
“Is that a concept album? I’m not interested in that,” he said. “You can just imagine, can’t you? Someone’s been sat there in a big fuckin’ office and gone, ‘That’s how we’re gonna do it.’ Nah. That should be left to your fuckin’ psychiatric fuckin’ chair, innit? Sum it all up in one song. The whole fuckin’ record? I’m not having that.”
4:44 debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and received a Grammy nomination for ‘Album of the Year’. Speaking on the project’s 36-minute running time, Jay told the Rap Radar Podcast, “This album has a lot of topics that’s why it had to be so short, it’s so condensed. It’s so dense with subject matters and all these other things that if it was longer, you wouldn’t be able to take it; it would wear you out. It had to get to a point really quickly.”
Jay-Z headlined Glastonbury in 2008. Liam’s brother, Noel, wasn’t happy with the decision after it was announced he would be on the Pyramid Stage. “Sorry, but Jay-Z? Fucking no chance,” he told BBC News. “Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music, do you know what I mean? Even when they throw the odd curveball in on a Sunday night, you go, Kylie Minogue? I don’t know about it. But I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It’s wrong.”
Hov responded to Noel by opening his set with a cover of Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ while playing the guitar. Gallagher backtracked on his words during an interview with NME, saying, “I said what I said, and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong. I’ll have a beer with him one day, and it will be fine.”
Around the same time Liam criticised 4:44, he also thought A$AP Rocky was called WhatsApp Ricky. “My kids fucking love grime music,” he told GQ. “Stormzy, Skepta—he seems pretty mad. I like him. They also like that bloke, WhatsApp Ricky. You know, the American geezer, stylish, funny, gold teeth.” When asked if he meant Rocky, he said, “Oh yeah, that’s the fella. WhatsApp Ricky. That’s a better fucking name anyway.”