Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3

Jay-Z may be scrutinized against higher standards and across more demographics than any other living rapper. His previous body of work raised expectations for future hip-hop releases, his own especially. Blueprint 3 proves the MC to be acutely aware of this fact. “What We Talkin’ About” begins the album with a solid disco-tinged synth-pop track featuring Australian electro duo Empire of the Sun, but Jay’s obsessive lyrical self-consciousness in response to everyone else’s consciousness of him doesn’t make for a particularly interesting story. In fact, if Jay-Z had adhered to the guidelines he lays out in the first 12 bars regarding what he’s “talkin’ ‘bout” (“real shit,” “life,” and “pain,” rather than “who’s hot,” “profit,” and “gossip,”) when writing the majority of Blueprint 3, the album may have turned out for the better.

Unfortunately, Jay’s meta-musing continues with “Thank You”’s self-congratulatory, braying chorus, in which he applauds all of his haters for making his career possible and revels in his life, now “balcony, opera, black tux, binoculars.” The following tracks generally concern Jay-Z’s status as a trend-hopping lifestyle-setter (“Off That,” “On to the Next One”) or his indispensability to the rap game (“Real as it Gets,” “A Star is Born,” “Already Home,” “Reminder,” “So Ambitious”). The beats, produced by big names like No I.D., Kanye West, Timbaland, and Swizz Beatz, are tinged with a techno flavor and liberally sprinkled with bright brass and vocal samples. They range from the intriguing to the repetitive, but each song’s subject matter is fairly consistent: Jay-Z is extremely famous. And he knows it.

It may be this very sense of epic popularity that has stifled Jay’s lyrical creativity. His overarching narrative has always been perseverance in the face of blistering opposition, an aggressive maintenance of swagger despite challenges from all angles. But now that the weights are off his ankles, his detractors largely silenced or dwarfed in the face of his enormous profitability, he seems to be spinning frantically in place. There’s a lot of fanfare in Blueprint 3, but little sense of maturation or progress. Jay feels frozen, unable to get past the nouveau-urban Horatio Alger sensibility that has successfully framed many of his albums in the past but seems played out and a bit tone deaf given his current position vis-à-vis the economic crisis (Read: as a multi-millionaire who probably hasn’t had to worry about the provenance of his next meal for well over a decade).

With no new hard-knock stories to tell or adversarial forces to target, Jay-Z settles back on comparisons of his opulent lifestyle with his humble beginnings, as if his present is only interesting when viewed through the lens of his past. His swagger comes off as smug; lines like “I used to duck shots but now I eat quail/ I’ll probably never see jail” or “Used to rock a throwback/ Ballin’ on the corner/ Now I rock a tailored suit/ Lookin’ like an owner” feel banal and repetitive, as they are sprinkled liberally throughout the majority of the tracks.

That’s not to say the album is without strengths. Jay-Z’s unhurried delivery is solid, with few missteps. His way with words is capable and at times masterful, as he weaves bars into cinematic vignettes: “Beautiful music when champagne flutes click/ Beautiful women sippin’ through rouge lips.” He’s at his best when his hardcore roots peek through these pretty images: “Danger approaches/ We’re like, wait, who’s this?/ Let us save you some trouble, son/ What size suit you is?/ This way after the Ruger shoots through a few clips/ You can lay in your casket just as you is.” These rare moments on the album when Jay attains the perfect balance of fine silk and cold steel sizzle, and he shines lyrically, delivering bars with conversational ease.

Blueprint 3’s singles, while difficult to view as coherent with the rest of the album due to their airwave ubiquity, are largely bright spots. “Run This Town” features a haunting Rihanna chorus over a driving loop that buries into the brain. “D.O.A.” is a vicious piece of battle rap over a wailing jazz sample that unfolds with mesmerizing intensity. Still, guest lyricist Kanye West outshines Jay-Z on the former and the latter is undermined by its self-important, name-dropping lyrical content, which is somewhat hypocritical given the use of tuning software on several tracks, including the album’s sappy closer, “Forever Young.” “Empire State of Mind,” an anthemic ode to Jay’s hometown with a pretty piano loop and a ridiculously catchy melody sung by Alicia Keys, is perhaps the closest Jay-Z comes to recapturing his previous heights, as its production and rhymes marry well, each worthy of one another.

With the amount of big name producers, guest stars, and advertisements for Blueprint 3 liberally sprinkled throughout the lyrics, the line “Blueprint 3’s for sale” seems to take on a capitalist-tinged double entendre. Though Jay’s skills are still evident, the album feels a bit crowded with bold names, a bit self-referential in its stubborn reliance on a rags-to-riches (now riches-but-once-rags) narrative, a bit artificially constructed and market-tested with its shout-outs and brand-droppings. It’s not a bad album and would probably even be a fairly good album were it coming from most other rappers. But the curse (and strength) of Jay-Z is that he is not most other rappers. Jay-Z seems at his best when he’s hungry, and Blueprint 3 suggests he would do well to skip a few meals before his next release and disregard some of the distracting superstar cameos and aural trappings that his much-rapped-about money can buy. His talent is more than strong enough to stand on its own.

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