Jay’s two-day session spawned more than half of The Blueprint with four tracks coming off Kanye production. “I said, ‘Mom, we about to make it! We really going to make it this time!’“ “I went to the bathroom and I called my mom,” Kanye recalled to MTV News on the infamous “Izzo” session. In less than 48 hours, Jay-Z had the song of the summer and Mr. In two days, Jay laid down lyrics for seven songs including “Never Change,” “Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love),” and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” with the latter lending itself to a Jackson 5 sample set beneath a hook built on E-40’s bespoke ebonics. The beat tape changed hands, with West playing Jay Z joint after joint to thizz face reactions. Not only was he there to play Beanie some beats, but it happened to be March 6: He was there to wish him a happy birthday.Īlready landing “Nothing Like It” as The Reason‘s opener, Beans left to celebrate turning 27 as the doors at Baseline Studio opened up with Kanye’s manager, Gee Roberson, arriving next to a Gucci bucket hat-clad Jay-Z.
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The Beat TapeĪs the story goes, Kanye West moved to Newark, New Jersey with nothing but an eviction and a bed from Ikea to his name.Ĭatching public transit from his new apartment, the Chicago transplant packed a tape full of tracks built off soul samples, hoping to catch Beanie Sigel’s ear as the Philly rapper worked on his upcoming album, The Reason. “But there were times where he locked in for an album.”įor his sixth studio album, The Blueprint, it was time for the always-in-the-conversation MC to claim his city, his market, and his throne.īut to do so, the 31-year-old phenom needed a new sound. “Jay is an artist who was consistently working on music,” Roc Nation A&R Lenny Santiago, a.k.a. In the spring of 2001, Jay-Z was at war with rappers, lawyers, and the summer.Ĭatching strays from Queensbridge and cases at the Kit Kat Club, Brooklyn’s finest was feeling the heat from all angles as the season he held down for six years straight quickly approached. Album DescriptionAs Jay Z’s timeless album turns 20, we look back at the album’s unprecedented inception, larger-than-life rollout, and unforgettable drop date. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. Not tuned out like on Kingdom Come, but more content with his dominance as a rap godfather in 2009. gets multiple credits also - it's clear there's less on Jay's mind this time. Jay is upstaged once or twice by his guests, and while the productions are stellar throughout - Timbaland appears three times, and No I.D. The Blueprint 3 isn't a one-man tour de force like the first. The king of the crossovers here is "Empire State of Mind," a New York flag-waver with plenty of landmark name-dropping that turns into a great anthem with help on the chorus from Alicia Keys. " that it's not "politically correct" to rail against one of the most reviled trends in pop music during the 2000s.) From there, he branches out with a calculating type of finesse, drawing in certain demographics via a roster of guests, from Young Jeezy (hardcore) to Drake (teens) to Kid Cudi (the backpacker crowd). (Jay doesn't sound very convincing when he claims in "D.O.A. There's plenty more lyrical violence to come, but most of the targets are much safer than they were eight years earlier. West also produced the second, "Thank You," and while it starts with typical Jay-Hova brio, the last verse piles on the unrelenting criticism of unnamed rappers doomed to weak sales. "What We Talkin' About" begins the album with a wave of surging, oppressive synth, while Jay-Z enumerates (with an intriguing lack of detail) what he's said and what's been said about him, ending with a nod not to the past but the future (and Barack Obama).
Kanye West is in the producer's chair for seven tracks, and it's clear he was reaching for the same energy level as the original Blueprint (which he produced). The Blueprint 3 is somewhere between the two, closer to the vitality and energy of the original but not without the crossover bids and guest features of the latter (albeit much better this time). The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse was a complete turn, a set of half-cocked crossovers, bloated to bursting with guest features that obscured his talents.
The Blueprint of the first volume was Jay-Z as vital as he'd ever been, storming back to the hardcore after a few years of commercial success.
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When Jay-Z first made a series out of his best album, 2001's The Blueprint, it became a game of high expectations.
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Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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