The Blueprint is critically reviewed as his best album. Jay-Z's sixth studio album The Blueprint, released in September 2001, topped the Billboard 200 and produced Jay-Z's first Billboard Hot 100 top ten single, " Izzo (H.O.V.A.)". The albums included hit singles such as " Big Pimpin'" and " I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)" and featured several guest appearances from artists signed to Roc-A-Fella Records. Carter and The Dynasty: Roc La Familia – followed in December 1999 and October 2000 respectively. 2 was certified five times platinum by the RIAA and won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in 1999. The album featured the international hits " Can I Get A." and " Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)", which both reached top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100. Hard Knock Life was released in September 1998 and became his first number-one album in the United States.
1 (1997), which saw Jay-Z collaborating with producers such as Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and Teddy Riley, peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and earned a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Its singles included " Dead Presidents", " Ain't No Nigga" and " Can't Knock the Hustle", all of which reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart. The album peaked at number twenty-three on the United States Billboard 200 record chart and has since been recognized as a seminal work of the hip hop genre. Jay-Z later founded Roc-A-Fella Records with close friends Damon Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke and released his debut studio album Reasonable Doubt in June 1996. Jay-Z began his music career in the 1980s, building a reputation as a fledgling rapper in his hometown of Brooklyn and collaborating with his mentor and fellow rapper Jaz-O. As of December 2014, Jay-Z has sold 29,179,000 studio albums in United States. Uneven albums like Hard Knock Life were the crossover attempts, and now that Jay-Z is "runnin' this rap sh*t," a fully realized masterpiece like The Blueprint is the glorious result.American artist Jay-Z has released thirteen solo studio albums, four collaboration albums, one live album, one compilation album, one soundtrack album, two extended plays, one hundred and fifteen singles (including forty-five as a featured artist), nine promotional singles and eighty-two music videos. Besides, when you're already the top MC in the game, there's no need for crossover attempts.
For once, listeners get exactly what they want: Jay-Z and nothing but Jay-Z, over beats so loaded with marvelously flipped samples the songs don't even need big vocal hooks. Moreover, if the rhymes and beats alone don't make The Blueprint a career highlight for Jay-Z, the minimal guest appearances surely do. Besides rhymes that challenge those on Reasonable Doubt as the most crafted of Jay-Z's career to date in terms of not only lyrics but also flow and delivery, The Blueprint also boasts some of his most extravagant beats, courtesy of impressive newcomers Kanye West and Just Blaze.
There are 12 other songs on The Blueprint - and they're all stunning, to the point where the album seems almost flawless. And by the time he brutally dismisses two of his most formidable opponents, Mobb Deep and Nas, less than ten minutes into the album, there's little doubt that Jay-Z's status as the top MC in the game is justified. So when Jay-Z opens The Blueprint dropping rhymes about "runnin' this rap sh*t," it's not so much arrogance as it is a matter of fact. Yes, Jay-Z had risen to the top of the rap game in the late '90s and solidified his position with gigantic hits like "Big Pimpin" and "I Just Wanna Love You (Give It 2 Me)." Furthermore, The Blueprint's leadoff single, "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," dominated urban radio numerous weeks before the album hit the streets, generating so much demand that Def Jam had to push up the album's street date because it was being so heavily bootlegged. At this point in time, nobody in New York could match Jay-Z rhyme for rhyme and nobody in New York had fresher beats - and many would argue that Jigga's reign was not just confined to New York but was, in fact, national. Four years later in 2001, when he released The Blueprint, no one was smirking and no one dared snicker. When Jay-Z dropped "The City Is Mine" in 1997 and claimed New York's hip-hop throne upon the Notorious B.I.G.'s demise, many smirked and some even snickered.
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