The Blueprint

Background

The Blueprint was reportedly cut in two weeks, with Jay-Z allegedly writing the lyrics in two days. At the time, he was awaiting two criminal trials for gun possession and assault. He was also engaged in feuds with various rappers, in particular Nas and Mobb Deep member Prodigy. In the song "Takeover", Jay-Z attacks the two Queensbridge rappers, using a sample of the song "Five to One" by The Doors and an interpolation of David Bowie's "Fame". On The Blueprint, Jay-Z and his producers used vintage soul as inspiration, including a vocal sample on almost every track from such artists as Al Green, Bobby "Blue" Bland, David Ruffin and The Jackson 5. Exceptions include "Jigga That Nigga," "Hola Hovito," and "Renegade," a track produced by and featuring the rapper Eminem, and the only track on the album featuring another rapper on verses.

Blueprint Lounge Tour

In late August, Jay-Z announced a September–October tour in small venues. Because of the September 11 attacks occurring on the same day the album was released, the first two performances were rescheduled. Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were subsequently added, and Jay-Z donated a dollar of the cost of every ticket sold from the tour to relief organizations.

Reception and impact

The Blueprint received rave reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 12 reviews. It contains a unique and balanced blend of soulful samples that had both street credibility and mainstream appeal, thereby garnering praise from all quarters of the hip hop community and receiving special recognition from critics. Most consider The Blueprint to be one of Jay-Z's best albums, holding it on a level close to that of his debut, Reasonable Doubt. Upon its release, The Blueprint was hailed by Vibe magazine as Jay-Z's best album as well as the best album of the year, while The Source awarded The Blueprint a perfect 5-mic rating, a distinction reserved for hip hop classics.

The popularity and commercial success of The Blueprint established Kanye West and Just Blaze as two of hip-hop’s most celebrated producers. Furthermore, The Blueprint signaled a major stylistic shift in hip hop production towards a more Soulcentric and sample-reliant sound, creating a number of imitators who attempted to emulate the album's atmospheric style. Prior to The Blueprint, mainstream hip-hop producers had largely eschewed music sampling in favor of the keyboard-driven Timbaland sound (characterized by a shifting, syncopated rhythm, similar to samba or jungle music), due to the financial and legal issues associated with copyright laws. The Blueprint, however, revived musical sampling as a common practice in hip hop music and dislodged the digital keyboard-driven production style as the dominant sound in hip-hop music. Kanye West would later incorporate some of the production and sampling techniques he used on this album into his own solo albums. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "One of the greatest poets ever to pick up a mic released his magnum opus in 2001. One retirement and one un-retirement later, it's still his finest hour."

In 2003, The Blueprint was ranked number 464 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time; in a revised list in 2012, it was ranked number 252. Pitchfork Media named The Blueprint the second best album of 2000–2004, and in 2010, it ranked fifth on their Top 200 Albums of the 2000s list. It is ranked at number 4 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s". The album received a perfect "XXL" rating from XXL magazine in a 2007 retrospective article. The Blueprint was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Accolades

Album of the Year

Best Album of the 2000s

Top Album

Best Album of the Decade

Greatest Album of All Time

Commercial performance

In spite of its release coinciding with the 9/11 attacks, The Blueprint sold over 1,004,200 copies in its opening week, becoming Jay-Z's fourth consecutive album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 chart. It was certified double platinum as sales stand at over two million units in the U.S. Sales as of February 2012 stand at 2.7 million.

Track listing

Notes

Samples

Bonus tracks

As with Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter, Jay-Z put two hidden bonus tracks at the end of the final track. "Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)" is 3:41 by itself. Twenty-five seconds of silence follows after and the bonus track "Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise)" begins. That song fades and is immediately followed by "Girls, Girls, Girls (Part 2)". It is reported that the latter song features uncredited vocals by Michael Jackson. The final track as a whole is 12:07. On the iTunes Store, however, these bonus tracks are released as separate tracks, thus making the album 15 tracks long. On the vinyl edition, there are no long gaps between the songs, but they are not printed on the back of the album jacket or record label.