Em’s “Rain Man” > Jay’s “Rain Man Flow”

MTV:

The last time Jay-Z used a pen to write a song was back in 1996, for a Reasonable Doubt track called “Can I Life.” And he only wrote down the second verse. For the Jigga Man, spontaneity is as important to his style as his flow and his storytelling — in fact, it informs both. It’s not that his raps are thoughtless, either. The consummate lyricist, Hova constantly organizes and re-organizes his thoughts, and though his rhymes are constructed in advance, he never actually writes a word down to paper. The result is a natural fluidity that allows his raps to float in the space between the casually cool and the profoundly dense.