Cops want to knock me
D.A. want to box me
In, but somehow I beat
Them charges like Rocky
Not guilty
He who does not feel me
Is not real to me
Therefore he doesn’t exist
So poof
Vamoose
Son of a bitch
It’s not surprising that as late as 2009, eight years after this album dropped, Jay was still returning to The Blueprint to attempt to recapture that magic by releasing his third Blueprint album. This album really is that masterful and foundational. It’s a triumph in basically every way and it feels the most of any of Jay’s albums to that point, like a truly cohesive whole. Jay was always very generous with guest rappers and guest verses, but this album is as fully from Jay’s perspective as anything he’s ever done. There’s one guest verse by Eminem on the rampaging Renegade and Eminem is on top of his game on it, but the absence of any other voices on the record is significant I think. It signals that The Blueprint is one of Jay’s most personal albums, taken up with his past, present and future at the expense of just about any other kind of statement. But that foundational philosophy for an album is one thing. Anybody could come up with that premise, but then end up dragging in guests later to help fill things up; Jay didn’t have to do that because this album is absolutely bursting with words and ideas. The Blueprint is Jay at the top of his game in terms of the sheer volume of things he has to say; this album feels like he’s poured out his heart and soul and, once he’s started, he’s been surprised himself at just how much he ended up having to say. If the legend that this album was written in just two days and recorded in just two weeks is true, that makes sense to me. Everything about this album sounds like Jay intended to start and then simply couldn’t stop, so intense was the burst of creativity.
But if the vocals and lyrics are entirely Jay’s, the music and production is by a host of stars and soon to be stars like Kanye West, Timbaland & Bink and it really shows. The beats and samples here are very soul based and they give Jay some of the best musical beds he’s ever had. Everything works together to create a true masterpiece. Some of the stuff here really just stands up with the best things Jay’s ever done or, frankly, that have ever come out of the hip-hop genre. Takeover is one of the greatest diss tracks ever recorded, for instance, a ferocious song in which there’s a new potential mike-drop every two lines or so. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) & Hola Hovito are both masterpieces of posturing cool with hooks to die for. Song Cry is a surprisingly interior exploration of manipulation, the kind of song few rappers, or few artists in any other genres really, would ever come up with. Even the bonus tracks, which push the album up over sixty minutes, are strikingly good. I’m kind of notorious for trotting out the “tighten this album to forty-five minutes and you’ve got a masterpiece” cliché when albums top the sixty minute mark, but this is an exception; the flow of the album as a whole is so good that you kind of wish it would just keep going when it ends. Perhaps that’s another motivation behind the creation of two more Blueprint albums over the next few years. The meanings behind the title are myriad, but there’s one that even Jay may not have intended: aspiring hip-hop artists who want to achieve greatness should take some time to peruse the pattern laid out here. 4 stars.
tl;dr – one of Jay’s most personal albums, The Blueprint is a burst of pure creative energy, featuring amazing production & astonishingly great lyrics; one of the masterpieces of hip-hop. 4 stars.