On The Blueprint 3‘s first single “D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)”, Jay-Z complains about the state of rap and brags about getting back to real hip-hop, but he spends the rest of the album completely contradicting himself: this sounds like Jay-Z trying his hand at a more pop-oriented album – à la collaborator Kanye West – but Jigga isn’t Kanye and his attempts (aside from most of the album’s first third, particularly second single “Run This Town”) generally fall flat and become immediately forgettable, before the album gets downright terrible with the cheese-tastic closer “Young Forever” and the muddled, disgracefully bad “Hate” (possibly one of the worst songs of the year); The Blueprint 3 is clearly the sound of Jay-Z trying to be something he isn’t.

Rating: 5 / 10

September 11, 2009
Roc Nation

Mick Boogie and Terry Urban’s Viva la Hova is a mostly-brilliant Jay-Z/Coldplay mashup album which, unlike most of the seemingly endless Jay-Z mashup albums out there, matches music to mood superbly and gives a dreamy and ethereal backdrop to his rhymes which works extremely well.
Viva la Hova is a free download. Find out more and get download instructions at the official website.

Grade: 4 / 5

Featuring 5 new songs from the prolific Viva la Vida sessions (as well as 3 reworkings of songs from Viva), Prospekt’s March is slightly uneven but works as an EP, and contains some gems in “Life In Technicolor II” and “Rainy Day”, the latter of which could easily have been a single from Viva La Vida, and a brilliant new version of “Lost” featuring Jay-Z.

Grade: 3.3 / 5

Jay-Z – The Blueprint

September 11, 2001
Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam
Rating: 4.6 / 5

The Music Rag One Sentence Review: Arguably Jigga’s masterpiece, he spits expertly only the way he can on then-beefs, girls (girls, girls), and a possible stint in prison, all without unnecessary skits and other frills and superbly soulful production from the likes of Timbaland, Just Blaze, and an at-the-time unknown Kanye West. (With a great guest appearance by Eminem on “Renegade”.)

Ain’t no love: With Jay-Z facing the possibility of a prison sentence for gun possession and assault, The Blueprint was written in a mere two days and recorded in two weeks. The album’s second track, “Takeover” addresses various MCs who were attacking Jay-Z at the time, including Nas, Prodigy, and Mobb Deep, with a mere “fuck y’all niggas” to all other critics.