Hip Hop

First off, I know that this album came out on Sept. 11 and I'm a little bit late in posting this. However I've been busy and just now had time to get to this review.

Now if you recall, in 2006 Jay made it apparent that he was going to retire with such songs as What More Can I Say? At this time he was receiving a lot of criticism on his Kingdom Come album which was making him uncomfortable and was taking the criticism to heart. He then took advantage of the opportunity opened up by the movie American Gangster to slide back into the game and once again got back into the studio to start recording.

This year of course he released the controversial song D.O.A. (Death of Autotune) attacking the growing trend in rap within the last few years. This song gathered a lot of attention through the hip hop world and basically let everyone know without a doubt, Hova is back with a vengeance. Let's rewind a little bit, on September 11, 2001 Jay-Z released his sixth studio album The Blueprint. Despite the release date of the cd coinciding with the devastating 9/11 attacks, the cd had phenomenal success selling 426,000 copies in the first week, marking Jay-Z's fourth consecutive album to reach number one on the Billboard 200. This album is without any doubt a classic.

The Blueprint 2 released in 2002 had less success than it's predecessor, but was still a pretty decent album. Now Jay-Z has followed those albums up with the Blueprint 3 making an album trilogy. I've listened to this album and Jay-Z is back on fire and ready to light a fire under the ass of the rest of the hip hop world. Drawing from rock influences the album has taken on new directions with production to Jay's previous albums. The first single garnering attention for this album was the song Run This Town. Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West, all do an amazing job on the beat which was also made by Kanye.

Now while I'm not going to give everyone a song by song breakdown, below you will find the song list along with credits to those deserving.


1 "What We Talkin' About" Kanye West, No I.D. Luke Steele 4:04 "Spirit" by Frederic Mercier
2 "Thank You" Kanye West, No I.D. 4:10 "Ele E Ela" by Marcos Valle
3 "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" No I.D. 4:15 samples "In the Space" by Janko Nilovic and Dave Sucky
4 "Run This Town" Kanye West, No I.D. Rihanna and Kanye West 4:28 "Someday in Athens" by The Four Levels of Existence.[38]
5 "Empire State of Mind" Shux, co-produced by Janet "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic & Angela Hunte Alicia Keys 4:37 "Love on a Two-Way Street" by The Moments
6 "Real as It Gets" The Inkredibles Young Jeezy 4:13
7 "On to the Next One" Swizz Beatz Swizz Beatz 4:16 "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice
8 "Off That" Timbaland, Jermone "Jroc" Harmon Drake 4:07
9 "A Star Is Born" Kanye West, No I.D., additional production by Kenoe J. Cole 3:47 "Touch Me" by Mother Freedom Band
10 "Venus vs. Mars" Timbaland, Jermone "Jroc" Harmon Beyoncé 3:11
11 "Already Home" Kanye West, additional production by No I.D. and Jeff Bhasker Kid Cudi 4:30 "Mad Mad Ivy" by Gladdy's Allstars
12 "Hate" Kanye West Kanye West 2:32
13 "Reminder" Timbaland, Jerome "Jroc" Harmon 4:18
14 "So Ambitious" The Neptunes Pharrell 4:12 "Memory Lane" by Minnie Ripperton
15 "Young Forever" Kanye West Mr Hudson 4:16 "Forever Young" by Alphaville