What's Free? Jay's very okay verse

The Internet went fkn bonkers this weekend when the track "What's Free" from Meek's new album was released, mainly because in spite of a great somewhat off-subject verse from Ross and an awesome on-subject verse from Meek that is being criminally ignored...the Jay Stans came out in epic numbers to give their best Beyhive impressions. However, after checking out the verse, I wasn't left nearly as impressed as basically EVERYONE else. Now, I'll own that I haven't been the biggest Jay fan since Vol. 2. Jay's not in my top 5 of all time, and I feel he gets away with quite a bit of "filler bar nonsense" at this point for no other reason than the fact that he's "Jay-Hova" to so many. I had a chat with a homie who's always been the biggest Jay fan I've ever known and to my surprise, he also felt the verse was "Really Okay". That was pretty validating for me, because it showed that I wasn't in fact, just on some hatin' nigga shit. However, I was still left puzzled as to why our opinions of the verse differed so much from The Masses.
...and then it hit me...
I was listening to the Joe Budden Podcast breakdown of the song & more specifically Jay's verse and realized EXACTLY WHY: The substance of the verse wasn't anything I didn't already know or hadn't already thought of extensively on my own. As a Hip Hop verse, it's technically constructed at an elite level. The execution of the rhyme pattern structure is excellent. But, when I listened to each line and what it's actually saying & referencing, none of it was news to me. It was all things that I've been knowledgeable on for a number of years on my own, so there was no "Damn, I never thought of it like THAT before!" mind-blown moment or experience. Even further, the verse had already been sullied extensively by the mass-idiot reaction to the Non-Kanye Diss that was the Michael vs Prince stanza; which again, was a cool idea/reference, but not one I hadn't heard before elsewhere.
So, overall, I get it. And my point here isn't to call anyone stupid or ignorant...just speaking personally, the most impressive writings in song for ME, are those that tickle my "whoa, why didn't I think of that!" envy and wonder. And this just, wasn't one of those moments. It was just an otherwise really OK to good Jay feature, on a track that really belonged to the title Artist in every way imaginable.
...on another note tho, if you haven't checked out Meek's new album as a whole, YOU'RE FAILING. I've never heard Meek as focused and executing at such a high level as he is on Championships. The production is stellar for the most part (the way some of these previously been flipped a million times already samples were flipped here, is mindbogglingly good), and overall it's a damn good record. Dare I say, a late entry in the AoTY discussion. You should DEF check it out...it gets a strong 4/5 Ashy Knuckles from Raze.

- R.