This is probably one of the most anticipated releases in hip-hop over the past 10 years aside from Dr. Dre’s Detox and Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Linx 2. With Jay’s always relevant nature and mass appeal, it may be more anticipated by the regular public. Either way, Jay-Z had a lot riding on this album in the eyes of real hiphop fans.

Jay prepped it very well with the release of D.O.A (Death of Autotune), but unfortunately, the Blueprint 3 as a whole couldn’t live up to they hype.

Jay-Z – The BluePrint 3 – Album Rating 7/10

Overall: Jay-Z and The Blueprint 3 comes close to living up to it’s billing as a return to classic Jay-Z. Unfortunately though, it just lacks the gusto in both production and content. Jay-Z is too complacent, there’s nothing left to prove. The Blueprint 1 was in the height of the Nas / Prodigy feud, and the Blueprint 2 was competing with other classic albums. The Blueprint 3 is too much like Kingdom Come on the beats.  There are a lot of REALLY GOOD tracks, but then some REALLY BAD ones. I think spending some more time would have been good, but it’s definitely worth picking up, the good songs make it as close to a classic you can get these days.

Highlights: Empire State of Mind, A Star Is Born, Young Forever, and of course DOA and Run This Town.

Lowlights: So Ambitious, On To the Next One, Hate

Track by track review.

1. The intro track, ‘What We Talkin About’ is good,  staying relevant while keeping some classic Jay appeal.
2. The boring, and disappointing ‘Thank You’ is almost like a waste of a track, reminds of me ‘Can I Kick It’ from reasonable doubt, which was the only skippable track…skip this one too’.
3. ‘D.O.A.’ – Classic, ’nuff said.
4. By now we’ve all heard ‘Run This Town‘. This could’ve been another classic track if not for Kanye’s nonsensical verse at the end. Still worth listening to as it fits it’s spot on the album. This is a great track to examine for production purposes which we’ll be doing in a future post.
5. Empire State of Mind – One of the best tracks on the album, especially if you’re a new yorker, ever have been, or want to be. Jay shows major NYC love, vivid pictures of the city from his words.
6. Jay gets some help from Young Jeezy on ‘Real As It Gets’. The problem here isn’t Young Jeezy, it’s the boring synth beat with the stock Fantom sounding drums. Just an all around boring track. Skip it.
7. ‘On To The Next One’ - Really Jay? Why? Swizz Beats? Dude has done the same song on every album for the past 10 years, and they’ve all sucked.  Definitely the worst track on the whole album.
8. Drake and Timbaland join Jay on ‘Off That’, and surprisingly, it almost works. Too “pop” for my tastes, but it’s well put together.
9. Now this is Jay! ‘A Star is Born’ has Jay giving tribute to hiphop history. Everything from Wu to Mobb Deep and Outkast get shouted out in this one. This is definitely Jay-Z at his best. Up there with the best on the album.
10. ‘Venus vs Mars’ is a very different track that doesn’t really fit in the rest of the album. Almost the standard “chick track” that Jay has been doing his whole career, not my cup of tea, but definitely not as bad as things like ‘On to the Next One’. I’d skip it.
11. The next one is a pretty good beat where Jay kills it, but for whatever reason they thought it would be a good idea to have the horrible voiced Kid Cudi attempt to sing on the hook, and repeat the hook a lot. If you can get past the hook, it’s okay, but that’s a lot of torture to go through. Jay is great on it, I see a remix in the future.
12. Kanye, Kanye, Kanye…save it for your albums. ‘Hate’ is one of those tracks that makes you wonder what the fuck Kanye is on and why Jay would agree to it. They both sound bad on this track. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but on first listen…SKIP.
13. One of the strangest tracks on the Blueprint 3 has got to be this one. ‘Reminder’ sounds more reminiscent of Moment of Clarity than anything else, just as boring, just as awkward. Some good lines, but a bad hook, and bad beat selection…I’ll be skipping.
14. Pharrell…please go back to wherever you’ve been hiding, the game has not missed you. This track just sucks, no matter what Jay-Z says can’t save it. Skip it…it’s called ‘So Ambitious’.
15. After a string of must skip songs, Jay-Z brings a little bit of comedy with ‘Young Forever’. The superhit by one hit wonder German group Alphaville provides the inspiration. Yeah, that same ‘Forever Young’ song. I couldn’t help but start laughing while first listening to this on the train. Jay pulls it off though, it’s kind of strange, but it works. Jay has that swagger that a lot of the album was missing. The guy always knows how to end a project.

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Need to get your Kanye Fix? Whether it’s the goofy dancing, the ego, or just the hot beats, we all want to see him. You can’t deny that he’s a great entertainer. Maybe he took the Auto-Tune overboard, but hey, even Nas put out Nastradamus so I guess we can give everyone a pass. Anyway, onto the videos…

1. Kanye West & Timbaland remake “Stronger” (apparently it was re-mixed about a dozen times)

2. Kanye West making a beat on “60 Minutes”

3. Kanye West Making “Good Life”

4. Kanye West – Unknown Beat (Older Video)

5. Kanye Making some flute beat – (from “Stripped”)

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This time it’s no other than the GOAT himself, actually sounding pretty good. The beat is the real star here. Just when you thought Kanye completely lost his mind and went too far, he brings it back with some real hiphop. This is almost some Wu-Type stuff. Only thing better than this might be the Raekwon – Staten track, but the original has to get love first.

Jay-Z – Brooklyn We Go Hard (from the Notorious Soundtrack)

It’s really hard to count Kanye out when he can deliver like this…too bad this doesn’t get spin while they still play Love Lockdown six times a day on local radio…thank god for Pandora.

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