The third and final part of Jay Z's acclaimed 'Blueprint' trilogy, the rapper's 11th album overall comes a full seven years, and four albums after the 2002's The Blueprint2: The Gift and The Curse.
Once again, Jay-Z has called in plenty of his big name friends for The Blueprint 3. Guest appearances are best used to his advantage on 'Run This Town' where Rihanna's nasal tones lead a strong melody against a slick repeated guitar riff, and Kanye West's assertive rap. Producing a grand total of three tracks on The Blueprint 3, Timbaland's greatest contribution can be heard on 'Off That', a buzz and beat heavy number featuring the vocal talents of Drake.
Jay-Z's recent preoccupation with Auto-Tune is amusing, too, if unfounded. As well as forming the main subject matter of lead single 'D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)', with its retro guitar and jazzy clarinet, Jay-Z says 'f**k that auto-tune' while using the pitch correcting software contemptuously in 'On To The Next One', which skips and loops a sample of Justice's 'D.A.N.C.E' to make it eerie and almost unrecognisable.
Jay-Z's wit and insight comes out in some clever lyricism, particular where he comments on modern pop culture, making reference to Sinatra, DeNiro, Britney Spears, McDonalds and more, but he almost undoes this good work with the usual crass and vulgar comments that make him sound common and ignorant. Sure, sexually explicit, derogatory and materialistic lyrics are nothing new for rap music, but that doesn't make a line like 'she got an ass that will swallow up a G-string,' or arbitrary exclamations of 'f**k y'all' any less distasteful.
But all that would be fine if it weren't for devastating tracks like 'Real As It Gets' with Young Jeezy's grating rasp doling out truly painful repetitions of 'ay, oh, ay, oh'. But the worst by far is a god awful rendition of Alphaville's 'Forever Young', sung cheesily by Mr. Hudson, and butchered with a stale slow rap and clashing electro beats. But the truth is, apart from these two tracks, The Blueprint 3 will suit Jay-Z fans just fine.
