When Jay-Z first delivered his gargantuan and musically-diverse sequel The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse on November 12th, 2002, the game appeared conflicted. While the album featured some truly incredible moments, some felt that it was stretched in too many directions to fully succeed. Yet as the years passed, the temperature surrounding the project shifted for the better, if only due to the nostalgia associated with its release.
A vast contrast to the original Blueprint, which was largely built around the soul-sampling efforts of Just Blaze, Kanye West, and more, Blueprint 2 felt closer to Vol 2...Hard Knock Life in nature. The beats were a little more adventurous, with returning player Timbaland following up his Blueprint highlight "Hola Hovito" with an exotic and appropriately-titled follow-up: "The Bounce." Special if only for being one of the formative Watch The Throne tracks, the penultimate disc-1 highlight featured some boastful bars from Jay-Z and a particularly hungry young Yeezy. Released ahead of The College Dropout, the track is a welcome prologue to the greatness the once-mighty duo would go on to achieve behind the mic.
So with Blueprint 2 officially turning the corner on another year, be sure to sound off with your thoughts on the album -- do you think this one deserves to be deemed a classic?
QUOTABLE LYRICS
Rumor has it The Blueprint classic
Couldn't even be stopped by Bin Laden
So September 11th marks the era forever
Of a revolutionary Jay Guevera
