Jay-Z - Vol 2 ..Hard Knock Life

Likely to have been issued with no inserts. Acquired in a generic PVC slip wallet.

The audio is in high CDQ quality. Track 8 is not listed on the CDr, as it wouldn't fit with the alignment of the text, but it's on the disc. The title is taken from the established album & Memphis Bleek is given an uncredited feature for his role on the song. Unlike the seamless transition between songs throughout the album as found in every other format of the album including this one, Track 8 starts with Jay saying "-astard" from the outro of Track 7 where he says "you rat bastard". This may give credibility to it's unique position as not just a random bootleg but official promo. Jermaine Dupri is credited as "JD" on this disc, but he was billed as "Jermaine Dupri" on the retail versions of the album. Beanie Sigel & Sauce Money aren't credited for their features on this disc, so they are given uncredited roles.

No Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam Recordings labels are present on this CDr. However, I largely believe this to be official promo from those labels/Jay-Z's camp in late 1998, because of the channel I acquired this from. After being given the chance to view over 10,000 different CD/CDrs issued between the 80's-10's from this channel over the last two and a half years & acquire some of them, with 95% of it being official promo discs and the other 5% normal retail releases, there has been only three instances where I could dispute the officialness/legitimacy of the disc: a Chinese copy of The Marshall Mathers LP featuring a pic of Eminem wearing a hoodie on the front, [url=https://www.discogs.com/Lil-Wayne-Tha-Carter-III/release/18072874]a CDr of Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III without label logos[/url], and this disc here. There have been plenty of label logo-less promo single releases in this mix that have certainly been officially issued by the labels in charge of the artists of the release. There have been plenty of promo albums in this mix too that had label logos - promo albums on CD had label logos in the 90's, and label logos were on promo album CDr's with laser etched text in the 00s, but since the CDr was an emerging format in the late 90's and mostly had simple paper label sticker covers like here rather than laser etched you could perhaps excuse that there aren't label logos on here.

I give this a release year of 1998 because Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life was released in stores on September 29, 1998 & research online indicates this "TDK CERTIFIED PLUS CD-R74" model of disc was heavy in circulation in 1998. Even if this turned out not to be official promo, this would have been created in 1998 and if not, 1999. This TDK disc has a blue tint on the playing side, where most CDr's are just plain silver.