The Blueprint
Jay-Z
2001
I love how Jay-Z introduces himself on the album by saying "I want to thank everyone for their purchase." He was referring at the time to his fear of his music being bootlegged, but the line has taken on a much thicker meaning in the time since. There were thousands of people who had purchased The Blueprint as soon as it came out, and went immediately home to listen to it, and heard Jay-Z thanking them for their purchase as the Twin Towers collapsed to the ground. Yes, The Blueprint was released on September 11, 2001. This isn't even the first 9/11-released album we've covered in this column (incredibly, it's the third—"Love and Theft" and Rockin' the Suburbs are the other two—and it'll probably be the last—I already mostly dislike The Moldy Peaches, and I unfortunately don't think PoYB is going to get around to Nickleback's Silver Side Up). But it is the first time I let it affect how I heard the album.
Mainly in the way that The Blueprint is comprised entirely of Jay-Z talking shit. His confidence is so dense that it has gravity. I think it's thrilling in a vacuum, but I have to imagine that it was especially poignant on the morning of September 11th, a day in which every American not named Jay-Z felt more vulnerable than perhaps they ever had in their lives. I'm not claiming that The Blueprint was prescient in any way, but I can see a scenario in which The Blueprint provided strength for fans who needed it at the time. (I'm told that Jay-Z would later play into this, rapping about how not even Saddam Hussein could stop him. I'll eventually dive a little deeper into his discography, and I'll link back to this post when we get there.)
We probably don't even need the framework of the album's release date to explain how powerful and fun Jay-Z's ego is. There was a time in my distant past in which I would've considered this a flaw. I would've called it a "lack of humility." I have no idea when I changed my opinion on this, but listening to and loving The Blueprint, we can confirm that that mindset is completely dead. The album consists of nothing but Jay-Z talking about how awesome Jay-Z is, and it's fucking great. The best part is how calm Jay-Z is when he raps. There's a cool confidence in the proceedings. He is not the Paranoid King, and doesn't need to strain to prove his mastery.
The standout is "Takeover." This is not a hot take. "Takeover" seems to be one of the more famous diss tracks in the hip hop genre (and not just because of the amazing Doors sample). I'm way less concerned about the details of the diss, since one of its targets (victims?) is Nas, whose big album I also really liked a few weeks ago, and especially since this diss happened 22 years ago and Jay-Z and Nas have since made peace and even collaborated. Those details don't matter, because Jay-Z sounds like he's at his best when he's in the ring with some kind of "other." The "other" rapper, or perhaps just the "other" people who don't think he's the best rapper; Jay-Z responds by "killing ants with a sledgehammer." A knockout punch.
And here's most likely why it's tough for me, someone who has been seriously listening to hip hop for only like six months of his life so far, to take Jay-Z in his current form seriously. If "Takeover" was the knockout punch, then there were no other fights afterwards, and the boxer is swinging at the air, and has gotten soft and flabby. Jay-Z in 2023, from my perhaps ignorant perspective, is a way-past-his-prime musician who is primarily known today as a billionaire who hoards wealth and is thus a plague on the human race. Jay-Z on The Blueprint is probably the last time he was a hungry dog chasing the mail truck, and so but what happens when he finally catches up? What then?
Still, I'm not concerned about any of that when I listen to The Blueprint. What I'm concerned about is how much fun I'm having. Yes, there is some discomfort there as well—for example, we can say that the big single, "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," is a nazi sampling a pedophile—but I've already written about my thoughts on this, especially when we're talking about hip hop music of yesteryear. It's at once inexcusable and also complicated. Casual misogyny is filtered through a larger-than-life quasi-fictional character; absolutely despicable producers were hungry up-and-comers themselves at the time; being the most powerful shit-talker on earth occasionally involves shit-talking that ages poorly. We can interpret art however we see fit, and my personal feelings on the matter—which are my own, and which are also quite complicated, to the point that I find myself having to reclarify them for myself pretty often—are that this (A Year in Blind Spots) is an exercise in exploring music I'm not familiar with but should be, and not an exercise is sharpening the pitchfork. Plenty of time for that. Not right here.
The point here, I think, is that The Blueprint is regarded by many as one of the best hip hop albums of all time, and after listening to it, I can see why. But this is a personal journey, and so the real important part of this point is that I can legitimately understand it. This isn't just "hmmm if I were a different person then I could probably see it." No. I see it. I have listened to a handful of the greats by now. I can listen to The Blueprint and truly understand what makes this great. I'm temporarily ignoring all context besides that.
Also ignore that I'm a shitty writer and didn't really write about any of the songs in today's blog post. They are there—I'm particularly fond of "U Don't Know," and Eminem provides a legit challenge for Jay-Z in "Renegade"—but you can go anywhere on the internet for that shit. I'm assuming you're here because you are at least partially invested in a former anti-hip-hop dude's journey into a truly worthy genre. If I'm mistaken, and you're actually here for the tunes only, well then click play below. That's definitely worth it too.
Mainly in the way that The Blueprint is comprised entirely of Jay-Z talking shit. His confidence is so dense that it has gravity. I think it's thrilling in a vacuum, but I have to imagine that it was especially poignant on the morning of September 11th, a day in which every American not named Jay-Z felt more vulnerable than perhaps they ever had in their lives. I'm not claiming that The Blueprint was prescient in any way, but I can see a scenario in which The Blueprint provided strength for fans who needed it at the time. (I'm told that Jay-Z would later play into this, rapping about how not even Saddam Hussein could stop him. I'll eventually dive a little deeper into his discography, and I'll link back to this post when we get there.)
We probably don't even need the framework of the album's release date to explain how powerful and fun Jay-Z's ego is. There was a time in my distant past in which I would've considered this a flaw. I would've called it a "lack of humility." I have no idea when I changed my opinion on this, but listening to and loving The Blueprint, we can confirm that that mindset is completely dead. The album consists of nothing but Jay-Z talking about how awesome Jay-Z is, and it's fucking great. The best part is how calm Jay-Z is when he raps. There's a cool confidence in the proceedings. He is not the Paranoid King, and doesn't need to strain to prove his mastery.
The standout is "Takeover." This is not a hot take. "Takeover" seems to be one of the more famous diss tracks in the hip hop genre (and not just because of the amazing Doors sample). I'm way less concerned about the details of the diss, since one of its targets (victims?) is Nas, whose big album I also really liked a few weeks ago, and especially since this diss happened 22 years ago and Jay-Z and Nas have since made peace and even collaborated. Those details don't matter, because Jay-Z sounds like he's at his best when he's in the ring with some kind of "other." The "other" rapper, or perhaps just the "other" people who don't think he's the best rapper; Jay-Z responds by "killing ants with a sledgehammer." A knockout punch.
And here's most likely why it's tough for me, someone who has been seriously listening to hip hop for only like six months of his life so far, to take Jay-Z in his current form seriously. If "Takeover" was the knockout punch, then there were no other fights afterwards, and the boxer is swinging at the air, and has gotten soft and flabby. Jay-Z in 2023, from my perhaps ignorant perspective, is a way-past-his-prime musician who is primarily known today as a billionaire who hoards wealth and is thus a plague on the human race. Jay-Z on The Blueprint is probably the last time he was a hungry dog chasing the mail truck, and so but what happens when he finally catches up? What then?
Still, I'm not concerned about any of that when I listen to The Blueprint. What I'm concerned about is how much fun I'm having. Yes, there is some discomfort there as well—for example, we can say that the big single, "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," is a nazi sampling a pedophile—but I've already written about my thoughts on this, especially when we're talking about hip hop music of yesteryear. It's at once inexcusable and also complicated. Casual misogyny is filtered through a larger-than-life quasi-fictional character; absolutely despicable producers were hungry up-and-comers themselves at the time; being the most powerful shit-talker on earth occasionally involves shit-talking that ages poorly. We can interpret art however we see fit, and my personal feelings on the matter—which are my own, and which are also quite complicated, to the point that I find myself having to reclarify them for myself pretty often—are that this (A Year in Blind Spots) is an exercise in exploring music I'm not familiar with but should be, and not an exercise is sharpening the pitchfork. Plenty of time for that. Not right here.
The point here, I think, is that The Blueprint is regarded by many as one of the best hip hop albums of all time, and after listening to it, I can see why. But this is a personal journey, and so the real important part of this point is that I can legitimately understand it. This isn't just "hmmm if I were a different person then I could probably see it." No. I see it. I have listened to a handful of the greats by now. I can listen to The Blueprint and truly understand what makes this great. I'm temporarily ignoring all context besides that.
Also ignore that I'm a shitty writer and didn't really write about any of the songs in today's blog post. They are there—I'm particularly fond of "U Don't Know," and Eminem provides a legit challenge for Jay-Z in "Renegade"—but you can go anywhere on the internet for that shit. I'm assuming you're here because you are at least partially invested in a former anti-hip-hop dude's journey into a truly worthy genre. If I'm mistaken, and you're actually here for the tunes only, well then click play below. That's definitely worth it too.
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