The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse

The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse (stylized as The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse) is the seventh studio album by American rapper Jay-Z. It was released on November 12, 2002, by Roc-A-Fella Records and Island Def Jam Music Group. It is a double album, consisting of the pop rap-oriented The Gift and the hardcore hip-hop-focused The Curse. Like The Blueprint (2001), it was primarily produced by Just Blaze and Kanye West. Guest appearances include West, Faith Evans, the Notorious B.I.G, Dr. Dre, Rakim, Beyoncé, Sean Paul, Lenny Kravitz, Beanie Sigel, and Scarface, among others.

The Blueprint 2 debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 545,000 units, and received triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was supported by two singles that peaked within the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100: "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" (featuring Beyoncé) and "Excuse Me Miss". It received lukewarm reviews from music critics, who praised Jay-Z's performances, but found it inconsistent and criticized the length. In 2013, Jay-Z said he considers it one of his worst albums due to its overabundance of tracks. A one-disc reissue, Blueprint 2.1, was released in 2003.

Background

The recording sessions took place after Jay-Z's critically acclaimed and commercially successful sixth album The Blueprint (2001). The production on the album was handled primarily by Just Blaze and Kanye West – both of whom had recently established themselves as two of hip-hop's most celebrated producers due to the success of The Blueprint – while other producers include The Neptunes, Timbaland, No I.D., Darrell "Digga" Branch, Charlemagne, Big Chuck, Dr. Dre, Jimmy Kendrick, Heavy D, and Neff-U.

Unlike The Blueprint which was almost void of guest appearances, The Blueprint² features many featured guests, even out-of-genre artists that include Lenny Kravitz and Sean Paul. Other features include West Coast rapper and producer Dr. Dre, Rakim, Beyoncé Knowles, Faith Evans, Beanie Sigel and Scarface. The album also includes an uncredited verse from Kanye West on the Timbaland-produced track "The Bounce". Pharrell also provides vocals and hooks of many of his produced tracks, for example "Excuse Me Miss" and "Nigga Please".

Though the album has no strict concept, the album contains two discs. The first disc titled "The Gift" features mainstream, pop-oriented music. The second disc titled "The Curse" contains dark, emotional, and bravado street songs such as the dark-toned retelling of "Meet the Parents", the emotional substance of escaping the dangerous ghetto in "Some How Some Way", the dissing of Nas and Jaz-O in "Blueprint2", and the bravado "Nigga Please".

Critical reception

The Blueprint 2 received lukewarm reviews from critics. According to the review aggregatorMetacritic,The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Cursereceived "generally favorable reviews" based on aweighted averagescore of 64 out of 100 from 19 critic scores. According to Nathan Rabin, the record "led many to claim that [Jay-Z] lost his vise-like grip on rap music". In his review for The A.V. Club, Rabin deemed it "overreaching but surprisingly solid", featuring a first disc of clever pop-rap jams and a second that was "darker and more erratic". Rolling Stone critic Christian Hoard said The Blueprint 2 was another "strong record from hip-hop's most dependable voice" but felt Jay-Z's flow was more impressive than the production, finding it "long on both bouncy funk and forgettable R&B samples". AllMusic's John Bush believed Jay-Z showcased some exceptional songs but could not carry the 110-minute double album as consistently as its predecessor. Soren Baker was more critical in the Chicago Tribune. He felt Jay-Z's reworking of other rappers' music ("A Dream", "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", and "The Watcher 2") was unimaginative while the rest of the album lacked his usual enthusiasm. "It reminds me of nearly every other double CD", David Browne wrote in Entertainment Weekly. "It could have been a good single disc." Robert Christgau named "U Don't Know (Remix)" and "Poppin' Tags" as highlights while writing in his Village Voice consumer guide that he was disappointed Jay-Z sampled Paul Anka for "I Did It My Way" when he could not get permission to use Frank Sinatra's recording of "My Way".

Rollie Pemberton was more enthusiastic in his review for Pitchfork, writing that Jay-Z "weaves his way through every imaginable style and flavor with unyielding expertise". Billboard hailed it as "the most ambitious and most fully realized album of his career", while Q felt it surpassed his previous album. In the opinion of Spin critic Chris Ryan, The Blueprint 2 found Jay-Z "tightening the screws of his delivery" and discovering a "bruising poetry in a flow that once seemed clumsily conversational".

Impact of "The Bounce"

West's verse on the track "The Bounce" marked his first appearance as a rapper on a Roc-A-Fella release (although he contributed an uncredited hook to The Blueprint's "Never Change" the previous year aside from handling the production).

Vocals from Audio Two's 1987 single "Top Billin'" are sampled throughout the song. As well as this, it samples vocals from Alka Yagnik and Ila Arun's 1993 song "Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai" throughout. Pitchfork described "The Bounce" as Jay-Z showing 'extreme assonance'. In 2003, the track peaked at number 12 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and remained on it for a total of seven weeks.

Track listing

Blueprint 2.1

Blueprint 2.1 is a reissue by rapper Jay-Z, created from a re-cut version of The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse. It was certified gold by the RIAA. The album was released on the 8th of April 2003. One single was released from the album, "La-La-La", on the 29th. It contains half the tracks of the original, alongside 5 bonus tracks, including the aforementioned "La-La-La", the new track "Stop", a remix of Punjabi MC's "Beware of the Boys", and two more Blueprint 2 tracks, the title track and "Bitches & Sisters", which is also a bonus track on the original album.

Track listing

In other media

• "U Don't Know (Remix)" was featured in Madden NFL 2005.

Bonus tracks

The album contains two bonus tracks (after "What They Gonna Do, Pt. II") not included in The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse. The track "Stop" is a new cut and "La-La-La (Excuse Me Miss Again)" can also be found on the soundtrack to the 2003 film Bad Boys II. Although "La-La-La" did not chart the Billboard Hot 100, it did chart on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (at 37), the Hot Rap Songs chart (at 20), and the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart (at 12), all in the United States of America. "Stop" also charted on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hops Songs chart (at 53). The songs "Blueprint²" and "Bitches & Sisters" from the original album were also placed as bonus tracks. The Jay-Z remix of Punjabi MC's "Beware of the Boys" is included as an additional bonus track on the European version only and is lifted off Punjabi MC's album/CDS. The bonus tracks are unlisted and do not have track numbers.

In other media

• "The Bounce" was featured in NBA 2K13.

Charts

Certifications

See also

• List of number-one albums of 2002 (U.S.)
• List of number-one R&B albums of 2002 (U.S.)

External links

• atDiscogs(list of releases)