I think Hov is more of a businessman than a rapper tho, he's just good at covering that. Yall ever notice that Hov never drops an album without to back it ? Blueprint 2 he had the major sneaker deal with Reebok & Roc Tha Mic tour, Black Album he sold Rocawear for 204 mil and "retired", Kingdom Come was the album to fulfill his obligation to Def Jam & return plus he got the Budweiser deal and a liquor deal for Armand De Bregnac/Ace of Spades, American Gangster he got a big ass pay check from the movie studio to promote the album and his album was the soundtrack to it. Blueprint 3 he got the LiveNation deal for $150 million dropped the Decoded book, got married, and announced he was doing WTT with Kanye. MCHG he had the Samsung deal and all that.
I don't think Jay cares about dropping a "GREAT" album, it just has to be a superior product that he's pleased with that he knows yall will eat up and will satisfy his corporate sponsors sales wise. There's nothing wrong with that but when you have obligations to other organizations it's hard to drop music that is going to be critically acclaimed consistently and true to an artist's vision. That's why he did AG and it was so well received by critics cuz it was on music he grew up on and wasn't anyone to tell him to watch what he say cuz the theme of the music was consistent w/ how he felt.
That's also why Kanye West can drop albums and have such a consistent catalog of "classics". Ye don't have 101 sponsors to please backing him. He just has the label and b/c of who he is they're not gonna tell him how to make a Kanye album. If Hov wasn't so heavy into business and doing that he'd have more classic albums.
