{"id":753911,"date":"2026-07-10T03:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/753911\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T03:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:46:10","slug":"the-2001-project-jay-zs-the-blueprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/753911\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2001 Project: Jay-Z’s The Blueprint"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Art by DJ Short<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: Over the course of this year, we\u2019re publishing a series of essays about the rap albums that defined 2001, both creatively and industrially, and whether they predicted or were abandoned during the quarter-century to follow. See also: Tech N9ne\u2019s Anghellic<\/a> and Cannibal Ox\u2019s The Cold Vein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re supposed to imagine a mid- to upper-tier flatscreen television that would have been available to purchase in 2001. On it: R. Kelly, sometimes wearing a white cowboy hat, otherwise in a murdered-out White Sox outfit. Cigars, bucket hats, the little buggies you drive on tropical vacations because there are no traffic laws, at least not that you\u2019ll be asked to observe. Palm fronds and women who are nearly naked. Diamonds.<\/p>\n

When people say an album was recorded quickly, they usually mean that its songs were finished over the course of days or weeks. And in the summer of 2001, that\u2019s how Jay-Z made The Blueprint, his blockbuster, legacy-burnishing sixth LP that couldn\u2019t even be stopped by bin Laden<\/a>. But it was quick in the micro as well. \u201cWe\u2019re sitting in the studio, and just by coincidence the \u2018Fiesta\u2019 video starts,\u201d Young Guru, Jay\u2019s longtime engineer, told XXL in 2011. \u201cJay taps me, like, \u2018I\u2019m ready.\u2019 He walks out the door of the A room, walks down the hallway into another door, gets in the booth [and] spits all three verses\u201d of \u201cHeart of the City (Ain\u2019t No Love)\u201d in a single take. When Jay got back to the couch, the \u201cFiesta\u201d video was still on.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For an album that not only became so momentous, but was designed and presented that way, The Blueprint\u2019s process suggests something slick, even surreptitious. While Jay was at the time one of the most famous rappers in the world, shockingly few of its beats were originally meant for him. Kanye West had made \u201cHeart of the City\u201d with DMX in mind, given \u201cNever Change\u201d to a local rapper<\/a> from Chicago, and had Cam\u2019ron considering the Jackson 5-sampling \u201cIzzo (H.O.V.A.)\u201d for the album that would become Come Home With Me; Just Blaze wanted to send \u201cGirls, Girls, Girls\u201d to Ghostface; the Trackmasters wanted N.O.R.E. on \u201cJigga That N—-\u201d; Bink\u2019s \u201cThe Ruler\u2019s Back\u201d was passed on by Loon and Black Rob, and \u201cAll I Need\u201d belonged to a group from Philadelphia<\/a> but was relinquished when one of its members passed away. The album\u2019s lone feature, \u201cRenegade,\u201d was originally a collaboration<\/a> between Eminem and fellow Detroit MC Royce da 5\u20199\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art by DJ Short Editor\u2019s note: Over the course of this year, we\u2019re publishing a series of essays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-753911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}