![]() Kanye’s loaded beat tape also had instrumentals for “You Don’t Know My Name” that went to Alicia Keys and “Stand Up” for Ludacris, both singles that led Grammy-nominated albums.Īround the Roc-A-Fella team, it was clear the Kanye beat tape was taking Jay to another level. Jay’s two-day session spawned more than half of The Blueprint with four tracks coming off Kanye production. “I said, ‘Mom, we about to make it! We really going to make it this time!’“ “I went to the bathroom and I called my mom,” Kanye recalled to MTV News on the infamous “Izzo” session. In less than 48 hours, Jay-Z had the song of the summer and Mr. In two days, Jay laid down lyrics for seven songs including “Never Change,” “Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love),” and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” with the latter lending itself to a Jackson 5 sample set beneath a hook built on E-40’s bespoke ebonics. The beat tape changed hands, with West playing Jay Z joint after joint to thizz face reactions. Not only was he there to play Beanie some beats, but it happened to be March 6: He was there to wish him a happy birthday.Īlready landing “Nothing Like It” as The Reason‘s opener, Beans left to celebrate turning 27 as the doors at Baseline Studio opened up with Kanye’s manager, Gee Roberson, arriving next to a Gucci bucket hat-clad Jay-Z. The Beat TapeĪs the story goes, Kanye West moved to Newark, New Jersey with nothing but an eviction and a bed from Ikea to his name.Ĭatching public transit from his new apartment, the Chicago transplant packed a tape full of tracks built off soul samples, hoping to catch Beanie Sigel’s ear as the Philly rapper worked on his upcoming album, The Reason. “But there were times where he locked in for an album.”įor his sixth studio album, The Blueprint, it was time for the always-in-the-conversation MC to claim his city, his market, and his throne.īut to do so, the 31-year-old phenom needed a new sound. “Jay is an artist who was consistently working on music,” Roc Nation A&R Lenny Santiago, a.k.a. In the spring of 2001, Jay-Z was at war with rappers, lawyers, and the summer.Ĭatching strays from Queensbridge and cases at the Kit Kat Club, Brooklyn’s finest was feeling the heat from all angles as the season he held down for six years straight quickly approached. ![]() In this recent interview article on the Dezeen site, Barnbrook talks about how the album's graphics package was made to reflect DB's sense of his own mortality and that, according to the designer, "he always wanted to do something interesting, often to the annoyance of the record company.He understood the value of the image on a record cover, when other people had forgotten about it." While some had criticized the simple design (as being a bit too simple, in their minds), most fans appreciated the simple elegance and, since the designer chose to offer a downloadable file containing the complete graphics package free to fans (available with a non-commercial Creative Commons license at ), scores of downloads have borne out the popularity of these images.As Jay Z’s timeless album turns 20, we look back at the album’s unprecedented inception, larger-than-life rollout, and unforgettable drop date. ![]() You can read more about the young artist and her more-recent work in Katy Cowan's article - and I'd also invite you to watch a fascinating "making of" video on Tobin Smith's Vimeo site - Ģ) As a follow-up to all of the fascinating-but-sad articles surrounding the death of David Bowie, I wanted to share two other bits of information about Jonathan Barnbrook's work on what turned out to be Mr. Working as both a set designer and a fine artist, Yeoman's works look as though they're computer-generated (how else would they look as they do?) but, in reality, they're the result of a great eye and a LOT of patience. 3 (with art direction by Greg Gigendad Burke and photography by Dan Tobin Smith). By Mike Goldstein, ġ) Nice profile feature on the Creative Boom site on Nicola Yeoman, the talented artist responsible for the incredible assemblage that served as the basis of one of rapper Jay-Z's best-known album covers, that being the one for 2009's The Blueprint, Vol.
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