The Blueprint III is here. Upon first listen one could easily dismiss the effort as a Kingdom Come clone as opposed to the final in a trilogy off the classic Blueprint album. However, that would be as dismissive as blowing off his skills due to age. One cannot even call this Adult Contemporary hip hop. (My best friend likes to call this grown up hip hop) Reason being is that the game of hip hop while run by youngsters, audience and artist alike, not one has grasped the heart and minds of the genre ala an NWA, Tupac Shakur, or even a Big Daddy Kane. The current crop of stars come close but cannot accurately offer a reasonable facsimile of possibly, probably the greatest of all time. That would be one Shawn Carter. It brings to mind this past summer’s crowning of Kobe Bryant’s championship. He’s the best individual of today, but he’s no killer like Mike. I believe that’s why we all have such an obsession with number 24: not one more but almost, not quite. Simply put Jay-Z is my age at 39 still running hip hop, transcending time and crossing the Russell Simmons line financially while handling street cred AND the ear of the kids juggling them all as easily as Jordan killing Ehlo and the old Cavs breaking Ohio hearts like John Elway. Lil wayne? Almost …Nas? His survival is amazing but no. Jeezy? A Jaheim to Jay Z’s Michael Jackson. Kanye…..a tempermental preppie B-boy who may master the art if his ego allows. TI-King of the South….the latecomers, albeit powerful, to the game. So until another can level to galactic not local status, it is Jay-Z’s to give back to himself. To the music itself: Hits and in betweens. Both radio friendly trax 3 and 4 are the crux of the album. I thought trac one had me in an American Gangster type of somber thing. Then it swings from this and that. This is what happens with multiple producers…you get no central theme like the original Blueprint that had Kanye up and down it. Thus you get elements of Kingdom Come, American Gangster, and whatever he is evolving to. It takes some kind of nerve to try to change on the fly between labels at that. One can guess we will get the minimum of three more albums from the god of mammon. What the Roc nation will be? Who knows other than that he will always manage to make cabbage from cornbread. The question is does the formula that he found to take the universe can he keep the magic flowing? Can he continue to capture the sun? How long before retirement becomes the sentence at the end the period of a modern hip hop legend?

<script type="text/javascript" defer="defer" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js"></script>