The Blueprint 20 Year Aniversary Thread

[semicko82]

Don't know why Izzo doesn't get as much love as other Jay's singles. I remember the last verse getting quotable of year for Source magazine that year.

It's no way in hell a record like Girls, Girls, Girls would come out nowadays

 

[↓R↑LYB]

21 year old album
Damn time is flying

Damn, I remember being a sophomore in college and getting a ride from my classmate and putting in my blueprint album. Both of us was in the whip like after each song. The first true classic of the early 2000s

 

[semicko82]

Damn, I remember being a sophomore in college and getting a ride from my classmate and putting in my blueprint album. Both of us was in the whip like after each song. The first true classic of the early 2000s

I remember listening to albums on my portable cd player , and telling my brother this is getting 5 mics in the Source.

 

[LevelUp]

 

[Sean7]

I still remember getting playing this album that day and Killarmy's Fear Love And War as well which both dropped on 9-11.... This is one of Jays best albums IMO, especially on the production tip.

 

[HipHopStan]

I'll add my story to this thread:

I was a sophomore in High School. I woke up that morning of 09/11/2001 and was pretty stoked that Jay-Z's Blueprint album was out that day, and I was going to go get it after school. I had been looking forward to this moment all damn summer and 2001, thus far, had been the peak year for Jay and his fans as he was salifying himself as one of the GOATS of rap/hip-hop. As I headed to second period that morning, I overheard two teachers talking about a plane accidentally hitting the WTC in the bathroom. I thought I misheard them and asked one of them and they repeated it again. As I walked to second period, my mind was racing with thoughts of disbelief that a pilot could somehow make a deadly boneheaded move and hit the World Trade Center, although there was an incident in the early 20th century where a plane had hit the Empire State Building, so I guessed it was possible. As I walked in, my math teacher had a TV on, and he and my classmates were all watching it. Then, time stood still, as the second plane suddenly hit the other tower live on TV. That's when everything got scary. The Pentagon got hit next and then another plane went down in PA. Eventually, both of the Towers fell down.

We watched TV in every classroom for the rest of the day. Some kids were kneeling down and praying. Some were crying. Some had their moms/dads/etc. come get them. We were especially scared because Knoxville isn't too far off from Oak Ridge where the atomic bomb was partially produced. That night, I didn't sleep and just stayed up and watched the news. The next day at school we started getting back to business, but all everyone could still talk about was the attacks that occurred, and it was still fresh in everyone's mind for the days to come. It really felt like this was an end of an era as we were all now thrown into the dark reality and things would never be the same again.

Anyway, it wasn't until that Saturday that I saw Carson Daly talking to Jay about the terrorist attack on MTV that I realized that I had forgot that The Blueprint was out, and I still hadn't picked it up after looking forward to it all summer.

 

[semicko82]

The five mic review and this album dropping on 9/11 really adds to the album's mystique plus the incoming wave of soul sampling production.

Lighting in a bottle

 

[Easy-E]

This the quintessential "Jay-Z" album. Maybe his best overall album

This was the "Jay-Z" "character" at it's peak.

Nas took him down a peg (pause) in brashness (Blueprint 2 [the song] was hilarious in highsight)

The Def Jam job turned him fully to Euro Jay and it was done for good

 

[papa pimp]

aged like milk
excellent beats with dr seuss rhymes
5+ bad songs

 

[Easy-E]

Boooo, it's not the Blue CD case

I stole this (the EDIT version) from Wal-Mart and threw it away outta guilt (I got caught because I was regularly stealing)

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

An all time overrated album. Still classic but anyone with this in their top 20 is just wrong. Don't @ me either, just fukk off.

 

[re'up]

Woke up to my my Mom saying planes hit the towers, and in my ignorance and myopia of youth, I assumed it was nothing and kinda just wanted her to shut up, but went to school, and heard about it all day, was 15 years old.

after school, walked straight to Target, was listening to Bob Marley Legend, as some kind of compromise or acknowledgment of a national tragedy, and then slipped in The Blueprint, which is actually a perfect album for that day, it's lighter, less violence, less killing, a lot of soul.

 

[Bickin Back Being Bool]

one of the many classics from the GOAT

 

[2ATMsYouSteppinOrWhat]

the slander for this album is getting outta hand

 

[TheDarceKnight]

the slander for this album is getting outta hand

no doubt, it's a classic