loosie: words: Album Review: <i>The Blueprint 2</i>

Album Review: The Blueprint 2

The gift and curse of being Sean "Hovito" Carter.

by Douglas Passion | 2002.11.19

Jay-Z’s The Blueprint was the arty album. Granted, he didn’t push the envelope to the point of needing extra postage, but it was still an exceptional effort that re-popularized soul samples and marked somewhat of a departure from the fashionista fare that had long been part of Jigga’s repertoire. The accolades were plentiful. Magazines dubbed it an instant classic. Backpackers were converted. Jay even wore a Che Guevera shirt while performing with The Roots. It seemed that people were finally listening to the music and not just skimming through it.

One year later. Highly publicized squabbles with Nas and Jaz-O have given Jay’s detractors plenty of new material. Eminem, Nelly and Ja-Rule still monopolize the pop charts. The luster from The Blueprint has is beginning to wear off. This is chess, not checkers, but Jay-Z’s next move is not hard to predict. Throughout his wildly successful career, Jay has made a habit of following up critically lauded albums with releases designed for the pop charts. The seminal Reasonable Doubt begat In My Lifetime. The heavily praised Hard Knock Life begat Life and Times of S. Carter. With Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse, the pattern remains the same.

Modeled after his homie Biggie’s Life After Death, Blueprint 2 is a sprawling double album that aims to please as many listeners as possible. East Coast heads. Pop radio listeners. Ass-shaking females. Dirty Southerners. Rock & Rollers. If Australian dingo farmers bought truckloads of Hip-Hop albums, Jay-Z would have supplied them with a track or three. The strategy seems to make sense: cater to regionalism, inflate RIAA sales numbers with a double LP, ascend to commercial heights that make snarling competitors look like ants fighting for crumbs. You’ve got to admire the business acumen. But it’s hard to avoid feeling like Jay, Dame and Biggs aren’t on the other side of that one-way glass with clipboards. Your spending tendencies have been analyzed. Your geographical tastes have been charted. You’re no longer a variable in the equation – you’re one more manipulated member of a fucking focus group.

The unsettling element of puppeteers and purse strings aside, it is impossible to claim that Jay-Z is not good at what he does. The accompanying music may stylistically fluctuate, but the man is an endless source of charismatic flow, witty one-liners and insightful observations. He rah-rahs it up with M.O.P. on “You Don’t Know Part II”, trades bouncy high-speed verses with Twista on “Poppin’ Tags” and waxes nostalgic with Scarface on “Some How, Some Way.” There aren’t many other emcees blessed with the ability to adapt so easily to such a variety of incongruous circumstances. Perhaps this is the gift and the curse – Jay makes everything seem so effortless that you swear he’s not quite working hard enough.

The first of Blueprint 2’s two albums is tailor-made for the radio. The opening three cuts are excellent hybrids of accessible production and intricate lyricism – respectively, Jay is visited by an apparition of Biggie on “A Dream”, pops shit over a crescendo-heavy Just Blaze creation on “Hovi Baby”, and is joined by Dr. Dre and Rakim for a reprise of The Chronic 2001’s “The Watcher”. Then the surprises cease. Beyoncé, Sean Paul, Timberland and the Neptunes lend their talents to a cluster of tracks that primarily discuss women and their Manolo Blahnik footwear. Beyoncé proclaims she would die for her boyfriend. Sean Paul chants. Pharrell croons “fuck all night.” It’s not bad stuff, but you’ve heard it before. As for Jay, he’s his typical witty, arrogant self. On the Sinatra-influenced “My Way”, he opens up a bit. “Imagine how disturbed I was,” he asks rhetorically, “when I seen how big they made my fight seem in the club/ lemme explain exactly how the shit was/ this nigga Un, yo, I scratched him, he went home without an aspirin/ but it’s cool ‘cause we’re back friends, it happened and it’s over.” Just a little stabby-stabby between pals.

The second album is more geared towards the streets. With the exception of a few turkeys stuffed near the tail end, most of the offerings are a tasty blend of well-constructed lyrics and darker production. Jay’s usual knack for catchy hooks occasionally deserts him, but these are the songs that Blueprint I faithful are looking for. Meandering between battling, reminiscing and storytelling, Jay is at his most potent when the production allows his words take center stage. Not content with letting the cards lie, Jay takes a few more uppercuts at Nas on the album’s title track. Disparaging Escobar’s occasional monk-like façade as hypocritical, Jay wonders “is it ‘Oochie Wally Wally’ or is it ‘One Mic’/ is it ‘Black Girl Lost’ or shorty pay you for ice?” He rarely presents his life as an open book, but Jay reads us a few pages from the tome. “I put dollars on mine, ask Columbine,” he raps on the title cut, “when the Twin Towers dropped, I was the first in line/ donating proceeds off every ticket sold/ when I was out on the road/ that’s how you judge Hov/ Ain’t I supposed to be absorbed with myself?/ Every time there’s a tragedy, I’m the first one to help/ They call me this misogynist/ but they don’t call me the dude that take his dollars and give gifts at projects.” Who’d a thunk it? Jay-Hova: philanthropist.

Despite the similarities in the titles, Blueprint I and Blueprint II are about as related as Shaquille O’Neal and Tip O’Neill. The forerunner is a cohesive solo album that found a place on the shelf of every Hip-Hop purist. The offspring is an expansive cameo-packed double album that hopes to find a place on the shelf of anyone who has ever heard a kick, a snare and a few muttered words in iambic pentameter. If you can’t stomach the pop chart Jay, just wait a month or two; his next album will probably be a classic. This one only confirms what we already knew – Jay is an exceptional emcee and an astute businessman.