At the time, he was awaiting two criminal trials for gun possession and assault. The Blueprint was reportedly cut in two weeks, with Jay-Z allegedly writing the lyrics in two days. Upon its release, The Blueprint received universal acclaim, with critics praising Jay-Z’s lyricism and the production, and is considered one of Jay-Z’s best albums and has been labeled as one of the greatest Hip Hop albums of all time. Kanye West produced 4 of the 13 tracks on the album, including the song “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and the controversial track which included diss lyrics aimed at rappers Nas and Prodigy, “Takeover” while Just Blaze produced 3 tracks including “Girls, Girls, Girls”, “Song Cry”, and “U Don’t Know”, in addition produced the hidden bonus track “Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise)”. The album is also famous for both its producers Kanye West and Just Blaze’s breakouts as major producers. At the time of its recording, Jay-Z was awaiting two criminal trials, one for gun possession and another for assault, and had become one of Hip Hop’s most dissed artists, receiving insults from rappers such as Nas, Prodigy, and Jadakiss. Contrasting the radio-friendly sound of Jay-Z’s previous work, The Blueprint features soul-based sampling and production handled primarily by Kanye West and Just Blaze. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2001 at Manhattan Center Studios and Baseline Studios in New York City. Its release was set a week earlier than initially planned in order to combat bootlegging. The Blueprint is the sixth studio album by American rapper Jay-Z, released on September 11, 2001, on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. It’s a still a stunning, bold piece of work, utterly unlike anything his peers were making. Yeezus (2013)įorty minutes of abrasive, distorted hostility that drags everything from bovver-booted glam to industrial music to acid house into the mix, Yeezus is faintly marred by the feeling that West’s no-filter approach to lyrics is getting disturbingly out of control. The orchestral arrangements of Jon Brion add a new weight and depth to West’s sound, the hits – Touch the Sky, Gold Digger – are among his most impermeable, and there’s the unmistakable sense of an artist keen to reach beyond the usual confines of his genre.
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Late Registration (2005)Ĭollege Dropout has better lyrics, but Late Registration just edges it in musical terms. The sugar rush of his then-signature production quirk – old soul samples sped up to chipmunk squeakiness – matched by lyrics that already hinted at the complex, ambiguous figure behind the elephantine ego. The College Dropout (2004)Īs striking a debut album as 2000s hip-hop produced, the endlessly delayed and tampered-with College Dropout was almost as good as West claimed it was. Forget Chris Martin’s ill-judged cameo and luxuriate instead in the euphoric Good Life and the Daft Punk-sampling Stronger. The least appealing of his opening trilogy of albums – the superstar narcissism tending to the-paparazzi-are-worse-than-Nazis idiocy, the sound a little too calculated in its lunge for stadium-filling vastness – but still frequently fantastic. The Life of Pablo (2016)Īt turns infuriating, superb, utterly original and deeply flawed – occasionally over the course of the same track – The Life of Pablo is a rambling mess, liberally splattered with moments of greatness ( Famous, Waves and Fade) and haunted by the sense that its failings might be less down to hubris than the fact you are listening to a mind unravelling.
But some of the music boasts the same ambition as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the lyrics occasionally flame, as on New Day and Made in America.
West hooking up with Jay-Z was perhaps less about music than a super-sized, follow-that event, and there are moments when listening to the pair discuss how rich they are starts to pall. Kanye West and Jay-Z perform at the Verizon Center in Washington DC.