Jay-Z pioneers ”˜grown man’ rap on The Blueprint 3

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      Jay-Z
      The Blueprint 3 (Warner)

      Hip-hop has always been a young man’s game. For the past 30 years, rap has been dominated by talented and reckless kids fresh off the streets of America’s most desperate neighbourhoods, hungry for fame and fortune and fully prepared to die pursuing it. This raw mentality has made for some phenomenal music, but, inevitably, it’s also resulted in some real-life tragedies. Many of hip-hop’s most iconic figures haven’t lived to see middle age.

      But what happens when a rapper wakes up to the futility of that life when there’s still time? What happens if he dodges death, jail, and despair, and discovers love, marriage, and a wider world of experience? What happens if he grows up?

      Leave it to the best rapper alive to show us. “Ain’t nothing cool about carrying a strap/Worrying your moms and burying your best cat,” Jay-Z stresses on The Blueprint 3’s cinematic-sounding opening track, “What We Talkin’ About”. He continues with: “We’ve just seen the dream as predicted by Martin Luther/And you can choose to sit in front of your computer/Posing with guns, shooting YouTube up/Or you can come with me to the White House, get your suit up/You stuck on being hardcore, I chuck the deuce up.”

      The 39-year-old thus flashes a peace sign and moves on to paint a picture of what life looks like beyond the narrow confines of the block: an apartment in Tribeca filled with highbrow art, a wife, a Benetton-ad social circle that includes his best white mates (including Coldplay’s Chris Martin) and his black president, Barack Obama.

      Elsewhere, infectious anthems like “Run This Town” and “Empire State of Mind” express the heady sense of euphoria that comes with this new stage of growth. “No, I’m not a Jonas, brother I’m a grownup,” Hove jokes, poking lighthearted fun. “No, I’m not a virgin, I use my cojones.”

      With The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z essentially pioneers “grown man” rap, giving hotheaded young bucks some wise words to ponder—and us disillusioned 30-something hip-hop fans something to restore our faith in the music.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Jon Cranny

      Sep 18, 2009 at 12:04pm

      This album is really good especially, 'Empire State of Mind' I agree with you on that. There are a couple of songs that I don't like such as: 'Reminder' and 'Young Forever' (one of the weirdest samples I heard in a hip-hop song). But I disagree with the young guys that run the game point your making. What about the Wu-tang clan? Mos Def? Talib Kweli? KRS One? Rick Ross? Nas? De La Soul? Q-Tip etc... They are all 30+ and still making good music and are bigger icons than most of the one hit wonders rapping today.