One of the more interesting, though certainly less important, pieces of the mosaic of 9/11 is what was supposed to happen: the release of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint. It’s not like it got lost forever — and some people can say that, when the world stopped, it didn’t just pick right back up where it left off — as it was just pushed back a day. And any correlation to its brilliance and 9/11 is purely coincidental. But at one of the few times in my lifetime I can think of when the American public legitimately felt vulnerable on a global scale, Jay-Z finally let his guard down and gave us the album we’d been hoping he would eventually do.
Well, I guess that depends on who counts as “we.” The records Jigga put out that bored and/or infuriated me were wildly successful. In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, went platinum before Reasonable Doubt did. Vol. 2, which I wouldn’t even set a drink on, debuted at No. 1 and sold four million copies, last I checked (which was 12 years ago). Vol. 3 went triple. Even that Dynasty collaboration thing sold two mil. So, clearly, somebody wanted those tapes. It just wasn’t me.
That said, consider this: the same days Jay dropped Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, OutKast released Aquemini and Stankonia, respectively. I don’t know anyone whom I trust who would argue either Jigga album was superior, and they certainly couldn’t argue Kast wasn’t far more creative and forward thinking. And most importantly to me, Kast’s work was much more cohesive and focused. Those Jigga efforts often felt disjointed, as if he were trying to put out enough types of songs on an album that as many buyers as possible could find just one song they liked enough to shell out $12.99 at Best Buy. It was shamelessly capitalistic, which isn’t an inherent problem in a genre where embracing capitalism is almost a core tenet.
The problem is that Jay-Z got our attention in the first place with what amounts to a mind-blowing concept album. Reasonable Doubt was tight, concise, clear, and focused. And the same could be said for the highlights of Vol. 1, which was only ruined by — that’s right — the shameless capitalism of awful commercial pandering like “Sunshine” and “I Know What Girls Like.”
But if skills sold, truth be told…right?
So yeah, Jigga did what he set out to do, and he definitely identified how to move units in the tail end of the CD era (and please don’t think for a second that the change in medium hasn’t changed how records are made). In the end, however, it was dissatisfying. And on top of that, the music simply wasn’t memorable. Unless you just sit around yearning to hear “Money, Cash, Hoes,” that is.
Now, by the time The Blueprint came around, I was thoroughly bored with Jay-Z. For that reason, I really can’t tell you too much about what brought on the changes between Dynasty and The Blueprint. Maybe it was just as much as Kanye West and Just Blaze coming into their own and Jay being influenced by where they were going. Maybe he was just getting too old for that other shit. The answer would be cool for a book — I have Decoded, but I haven’t gotten around to it — but it’s somewhat inconsequential for me right now.
All I know is, the second “The Ruler’s Back” starts, it’s clear that the game has changed.
What you’re about to witness is my thoughts. Right or wrong, just what I was feelin’ at the time.
Not every day someone tells you, “yo, I got what you’ve been waiting on for five years” and you can tell it’s really about to happen. And keep it real: that was a seismic shift. Jay did cool well. He did tough well. He could rhyme his ass off. But could he make you feel it? That’s where it came up short for so long.
Want an example?
Look, it’s all there. The stories are vivid and unique, the track goes hard, Kelly Price on the hook. But you get to the end of the verse, reach the realization that, yanno, they must love him. Yeah…so what does that mean to you, Jigga? There is no answer to that. He capped Reasonable Doubt with regrets, and you know clearly where he is with that. So they love you…does that make you feel conflicted? Is it just another example of how you’re the man in the streets? Are you totally blown away that your mother let you slide for selling her rocks? This close…but not quite.
(I was gonna link “Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” but that one got really, really weird once Jay pled to that charge, meaning there’s possibly a good reason he didn’t seem believable.)
This go ’round, we got top-to-bottom resonance from Jay like we’d never gotten. “Song Cry” is all the confusion and sincere and understandable hypocrisy of Ghostface’s “Back Like That,” bringing Ghost’s naked vulnerability without all that lovable insanity. “Never Change” is as much about a hustler’s resignation as it is pride, the song about the other side of the game Pimp C said the rap game has lost over the years. “Renegades” brings Jay’s frustration with the imbalance between the criticism directed toward rappers vis-a-vis the conditions they describe, with a little you-can’t-be-me a la “If 6 Was 9.” “Blueprint (Momma Love Me) starts with everyone that took care of his stankin’ ass and ends with Jigga trying to keep Sigel’s stankin’ ass out of jail, him futilely trying to change a grown man while knowing no one could change him when he was 15 years old.
Of course, not everything was a window into something. Sometimes, the tracks were just fun and meant to bang. But save for “Hola Hovito” and “Jigga That Nigga” — the requisite I-can’t-help-myself commercial tracks of the album — they feelings jump out of the speakers. As hard as “U Don’t Know” was, and as perfect as “Never Change” was, perhaps the most amazing work from Blaze and Kanye came on the singles. There’s no reason a track like “Girls, Girls, Girls” should feel so warm, why “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” should instantly make you think of kids playing in the fire hydrant but the producers. As much as The Blueprint was an expansion for Jay, it changed the game for beats almost immediately. Soul was the ticket, and sped-up samples turned up all over the place. The groundwork for Kanye’s amazing and improbable solo career begins there. On this album, these two figured out how to harness what made Tupac so great that so many rappers struggle to sell — a range of sincere, unapologetic emotion. When Jay couldn’t bring it out, the beats good.
So even the parts of The Blueprint is for sale, it hits in the chest.
Finally, there’s “Takeover.” I don’t want to turn this into a Takeover vs. Ether thing. But for real, is this even a discussion? We won’t even discuss the perfection of the chop Kanye took of “Five to One.” In one verse — and before the album even came out…
…Prodigy’s career was over. And in one more, Nas’ entire career was reduced to what it truly was at that point — Illmatic plus a bunch of ehhhh. He made a joke of the dude without a single bit of hyperbole, and did it all in 16 bars. “Takeover” lacks the absurdity of “No Vaseline” or “Hit ‘Em Up,” but if anyone ever worked more effectively on a diss record, I’d love to hear whom. And he did it all without ever actually sounding upset? Yeah, you can have Nas crying about growing a mustache.
To make it worse for Nas, this was probably the least emotional song on the whole record. It was dismissive when The Blueprint’s overarching theme is awareness. Start the record, step on two short dudes, now let’s play the single. Nas got up — to work for Hov — but damn, man. Ouch.
I don’t think The Blueprint is the best album of the first decade of this millennium. That’s Scarface’s The Fix. But when you think about it: is The Fix not Face’s Blueprint? There’s Kanye’s beats, but there’s also a humanity to Big Brad we hadn’t seen. He’d always let us know what was on his mind or heart, even when we’d prefer not know that crazy shit, but it never seemed so approachable before. For the first time in years, after becoming the biggest name in the rap game, Jay-Z became human with The Blueprint.
I wonder, at times, how the tenor immediately following 9/11 affected the response to The Blueprint. I believe the album was so unstoppable that nothing would have stopped it from connecting in a broad way. But the day the towers fall, New York’s chosen king took off the crown to display vulnerability at the same time New Yorkers, who often wear their residency as armor, felt attacked for being just that. Right at that time, Jay dropped 60 minutes of music about rising from nothing, how difficult it could be, and the realization that not all of it would be worth the stress.
It wasn’t about the sun coming out tomorrow. But there was definitely a message you could find all over The Blueprint — no matter how much you want to, with all those that helped you and those that need you, stopping simply isn’t an option.
The rap game changed the day the world did. Oddly enough, Jay-Z didn’t. He followed it with Blueprint 2, which was everything that made me tired of Jay. Too much, not enough focus, screaming “money grab.” But the path he’s taken in his last three major projects — American Gangster, Blueprint 3 and Watch the Throne — is similar enough to Blueprint to say that was, probably for the first time since Reasonable Doubt, the record he wanted to make. It’s almost like What’s Going On was to Marvin Gaye, an artistic tour de force…that was followed by what the artist thought he had to release to satisfy the public.
At age “40,” Jay remains one of the most compelling rappers out. He’s still working with the man that brings it out of him the best. And when you can connect someone’s current work, which is still at the vanguard of the industry, then yeah…even on 9/11, it’s worth remembering. It doesn’t matter as much as the day, but it is also unforgettable.
