In creating a timeline of everyone else’s success, he also reinforces his own - his point being that he’s the constant in a machine of moving parts. The album, “The Blueprint 3,’’ will be released next Friday, eight years after the original “Blueprint.’’ With Sept. 11 in mind, Jay-Z will do a charity concert at Madison Square Garden the same day. But aside from nostalgia, the album is supposed to offer evidence of Jay-Z’s greatness for a generation of rappers who still find ways to question it .
Forbes-list money, ultradiva wife, and executive status lifestyle aside, Jay-Z really can’t win. “The Blueprint 3’’ is easily the best of his three albums since his pseudo-retirement in 2003, and it almost doesn’t matter. If he did a song with Biggie and Pac tomorrow, someone would still say, “Well, Jesus didn’t sing the hook.’’ He’s either competing against his own records, dead rappers, any rapper with a buzz and/or beef, or rappers he helped become stars, when, really, he hasn’t been interested in competing in years. So as much as he wanted to make this album about the music, it comes off as an effort to respond without looking like he’s responding.
“Thank You’’ is a victory lap, but he also reminds you that he’s got 10 No. 1 albums. “Off That’’ is about moving forward (away from making it rain, wearing Timberland boots, putting big rims on cars), but he again reminds you that the only reason rappers do it is because he did it first. And then there’s the song “Reminder’’. . .
The music doesn’t disappoint. Given the keys to the project as its primary producer, West’s pop leanings bleed through (see: Luke Steele of Australian electronica band Empire of the Sun). But the sound bounces from soul (either sampled through West or created by the production team the Inkredibles) to futuristic Timbaland beats.
