Credit: Alamy

Jay-Z is one of the tougher artists in hip-hop. With a rugged exterior built up during his time on the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant during the early days of his career, the New York emcee told gritty stories of the hood with swagger and bold confidence.

Although Jay-Z’s mafioso style of rap focused on success and told a narrative of “rags to riches,” as he progressed further in his career, Hov switched up his style and began to show another side of himself, which gave fans a tad of vulnerability and introspection.

It’s definitely not the fashionable way to approach lyrics, but the maturity signalled to fans he was entering a new phase of his career during which he would dial down the boastful attitude of a newly famous street star and instead look a bit deeper for more meaningful content.

2003 was meant to mark the end of Jay-Z’s career, although, as we now know, it was far from the final moments. His eighth studio album, The Black Album, was announced as his last project, and, as such, he sought to get every hip-hop great to contribute.

The album’s production saw production from Kanye West, Just Blaze, Timbaland, Swizz Beatz and then Pharrell Williams, who contributed in the form of ‘Allure’. The mellow beat of the song, with its piano melody and soft orchestral strings, was premiered to Jay-Z on camera for the documentary Fade To Black, which accompanied the album.

As Williams prepared to play Hov, the instrumental, for the first time, he told the lyricist, “Your career right now, this is the end of Carlito’s Way, and you’re just trying to get one more job in before you get out, but I’m trying to tell you that I have the song, I have the beat that describes that moment accurately.”

Carlito’s Way is a 1993 crime movie starring Al Pacino that ends with a notorious gangster attempting to escape the life of crime that has engulfed his life for an uncomfortable amount of time. Jay-Z tells a similar story on ‘Allure’ reflecting on his days as a drug dealer on the streets of Brooklyn and his desire to get out. During the chorus, Jay raps, “It’s just life, I solemnly swear / To change my approach, stop shaving coke” and “every time I felt that was that, it called me right back / It called me right back, man it called me right back.”  

Writing on Jay-Z’s Life + Times blog in 2011, Williams expressed how he wanted Hov to open up and be more vulnerable, writing, “With ‘Allure,’ I just wanted to hear him rhyme over something emotional, because he killed ‘Dead Presidents’… one and two,” he said. “He’s crazy with a crazy sick night club record, but when he goes emotional, it’s unbelievable. It’s like he connects with a couple of past lives.”

‘Allure’ is still a fan favourite among those who are aware of Jay-Z’s 2000s catalogue, and it was one of his first truly vulnerable tracks.