With rumours of a new Jay-Z album dropping, let's rewind for a bit, shall we? Jay-Z’s
The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
dropped in 2002, a few months after I graduated from high school, secondary
school for all you Nigerians, who like to remind the world we call it secondary
school here. It’s an interesting album, least of which because it was Jay’s
first (and thankfully only) double disc, an idea we’ve learnt over time isn’t
as easy to pull off in this genre just like the concept album, something Jay
would try his hand at later with American
Gangster, but let’s not debate that here (I liked American Gangster, even if some of you accuse it of being a rehash
of Reasonable Doubt; Jay has been
rehashing his drug past for much of his career anyway. Why complain then?!).
Suffice to say, the double-disc is hard to pull off with only two hip-hop acts
successfully pulling it off with the least amount of criticism: 2pac for All Eyez On Me & Outkast for The Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (the latter
of which you can argue was two solo albums sold together, but that’s neither
here nor there).
Blueprint 2
was also the album Jay dropped after the widely successful The Blueprint, which saw him square off against his New York rival
and fellow heavyweight- though was thought to be falling off at the time -Nas (and lose,
even though some of you claim Jay had the better diss record with The Takeover… ha, I laugh at that! I
admit, The Takeover was well produced
and the verses well structured, but let’s leave it there). The Blueprint was also a musically produced success with the
sped-up soul sample of both Kanye West and Just Blaze (or was it just mostly
Kanye who used that technique?!), so you could understand why the pedestal for Blueprint 2 was extremely high! But
sequels are hard to pull off (ask anyone who’s tried to make a part two to
their famous album) and The Blueprint 2
fell short.
It
did so, not because it had bad songs, it did so because it had so much dead
weight! Had the album just been Disc 1, aptly titled The Gift, it would’ve been far better (with a couple of additions
from Disc 2) and more lauded. The second disc was the problem, the mostly dead
weight. For the life of me, I generally can’t remember much of Disc 2, aptly
titled The Curse, because it never
really stuck. Blame my then age or blame me for being from a different part of
the world, whatever, it never really stuck!
Critics
(and fans) generally weren’t too receptive of the album, though some did hail
it, let’s not lie! Personally, I think Jay’s raps were superb as far as Disc 1
and the production overall- again, mostly Disc 1-was overall great, maybe
because it was the pop-oriented side of the album. I do have a soft spot for Guns And Roses from The Curse, just for the novelty of the record and the production on
Some People Hate is highly underrated
as the whole song might be as a matter of fact. Also, the U Don’t Know remix featuring M.O.P could’ve also created a great
balance if it was thrown on Disc 1.
However,
this post isn’t necessarily a review of the album (but you can read more of
what I think of Disc 2 way down below*) as it is a look into the time in which
it was released. Music was still being shipped physically and we were at the
cusp of the digital revolution with Sean Parker’s ‘menacing’ music-sharing site,
Napster (what a damn near sinister
name) about to damn near shred the standard industry model to pieces by
allowing users share music for free without paying for it. Something so many of
us do freely now, without considering it was once a huge deal. For your music
to be pirated back in the day, someone had to get a physical copy of it, soon
it was just going to be transmitted through the all-powerful internet. Those
early music-sharers were the first trolls of the music industry in the 21st
century… and some of us are descended from them.
Blueprint 2
was also an interesting album, considering the lives and careers of those who
were on it at the time. It was the beginning of the era of the super-producer
and The Neptunes and Timbaland were at the forefront of it. Both had first made
their names producing for R&B acts (Kelis & Aaliyah respectively),
before making the jump to other genres. In the immediate years to follow, their
sound would be all over the musical landscape from Jay-Z to Justin Timberlake,
from Usher to Madonna, from Urban to Pop radio and every genre in between, at
times overshadowing the lesser known artists they would work with.
This
perhaps might have set a precedent for other urban producers to follow suit
with Just Blaze working with Usher on his multi-platinum selling, Confessions in 2004 to D.J Premier
remixing Madonna’s Don’t Tell Me (a
record he won’t release till years after he did it; the original record by the
way was released in 2000) to eventually working with Christina Aguilera on her
third album.
The
artists featured tell their own stories too. Rap legend, Rakim and then new
songstress Truth Hurts were featured on The
Watcher 2, produced by Dr. Dre. Both were label mates at a time when we
thought the Dr. Dre-led Aftermath would be a full-fledged label beyond just
having Eminem as its main cash cow. Well, that expectation didn’t last long as
Rakim soon left the label and we never heard from Truth Hurts after her album
had legal issues over the sampling on her one hit, Addictive, which also featured Rakim.
Twista
who appears on Popping Tags had just
begun recording the best album of his career (Kamikaze), which would be led by singles produced by Kanye West. Kanye
himself would make an uncredited appearance on the bouncy Timbaland-produced, Bounce. I remember hearing his verse and
wondering who is this guy?! A month prior to the release of the Blueprint 2, Kanye was involved in his
now famous accident that would inspire his breakout single, Through The Wire in 2003. (I had no idea
it was Kanye on the Never Change hook
from the first Blueprint till I was
writing this.)
Outkast’s
Big Boi also brought his protégé Killer Mike who was just making it onto the
scene after being featured on group’s The
Whole World (what a single). The two appeared on Popping Tags. Outkast themselves were riding on a high after
dropping Stankonia, a couple of years
back. That album introduced them to a worldwide audience who fell in love with Ms. Jackson, ooooo!
Also
recently signed to Roc-A-Fella, were M.O.P. Anyone remember that?! I do. They
had just made a scene globally with Ante
Up (“What you want now? What you want now?”) and Cold As Ice. *Sighs*,
good times!
Blueprint 2
was also the first collaboration between the future Mr. and Mrs. Carter. It was
also clear that Beyonce was on the verge of a solo career as she was already
becoming front and center of her group, Destiny’s
Child, who in 2002 were on a hiatus. HA! If only they knew.
Musically
at that period, Dancehall was the alternative urban music of the era, so the
inclusion of Sean Paul on What They Gone
Do was not surprising. Like I said, this post isn’t so much a review of
Jay-Z’s Blueprint 2, but rather a time capsule into a particular time in music.
Certainly, the album may go down in history as one of Jay’s more muddled-up
work with one Complex review referring
to it as an “anticlimactic sequel to a landmark album”, but it’s an interesting
look into time.
*
Lyrically Meet The Parents is
poignant, musically, it comes off well produced, but overall to me it just
sounds boring and comes off like one of those records that could’ve been thrown
on the soundtrack to one of those DMX movies of that era that featured X and a
different martial artist. Some How Some
Way also produced by Just Blaze makes up for it and should’ve been thrown
on The Gift. There’s something about
hearing Scarface that almost makes any record better. Some How Some Way is a great successor to This Can’t Be Life from The
Dynasty album.
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