The Blueprint: A Real Black Album

So Jay -Z thinks his 2001 the Blueprint was the album of the decade. So I went back for a listen and guess what… it’s a really good album. Great? Not great. Reasonable Doubt was great, Volumes two and three are great, Blueprint? Great here and there… Great compared to Blueprint 2 and 3 but as a stand alone…? The act was already a bit been there done that…. Plus, plus, plus… Blueprint was almost too smart for all its own good. Here a dick wiggler, there a sensitive bloke, everywhere a King Of the Hill. It lacked, what’s that word again, heart.

Here is something fun and easy to do for all the family (and we haven’t done it in ages) let’s grade Jay-Z’s solo studio albums (no, no R. Kelly collabs, no MTV Unplugged):

Reasonable Doubt (1996) Grade: A
In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997) Grade: B
Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life (1998) Grade: A+
Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter (1999) Grade: A
The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (2000) Grade: B
The Blueprint (2001) Grade: A-
The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse (2002) Grade: B
The Black Album (2003) Grade: B+
Kingdom Come (2006) Grade: B
American Gangster (2007) Grade: B +
The Blueprint 3 (2009) Grade: B

So there is zero embarassments here, it’s all pretty good to pretty great. But better in the 1990s. And you can see the stumbling in the past seven years (though not in sales) and you can see Blueprint was tops. Why? Three great pop songs near the start of the album wins us over us we forgive him failed attempt at maturity “Song Cry”. The third, fourth and fifth tracks are “Izzoh OVA”, “Girls’ and “Jigga That N—a” -three addictive, hit, songs. Sure its pretty arrogant stuff but its not bragging if you can do it and, here and for the last this decade, he creams you. Sure there’s “Roc Boys” on Gangster and “99 Problems” on The Black Album -both are real pop strokes, but there isn’t that bang-bang-bang, triple loop landing you on your ass. Jigga runs em one after another live sometimes. Even when BP1 stumbles there’s a “Holla Hovation” to save it.

There is also the Eminem featuring “Renegede,” -as good as anything Eminem has ever freestyled (? -I think), and “Heart Of The City” one of Jay-Z’s great, great, great samples (from the awesome Bobby “Blue” Bland who blew me away opening for BB King years ago) “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of the City”. And a better sincere song than “Song Cried”, “All I Needed” in which he is, if not sincere, not insincere…

Unfortunately some of the other stuff is a little lax, the first two songs are proforma jay-Z and “U Don’t know”, a little later on seems to sink the momentum. Like I said, it lacks the consistency (but not the intensity) of his nineties works. A good album, sometimes a great album, not the best album of the 2000s.

The Blueprint: A Real Black Album

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