The Artist: Jay-Z
The Original: 2001’s The Blueprint
The Sequel: 2002’s The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
The Review: You don’t need us to tell you that BP2 wasn’t as strong as the original BP. Jay himself has admitted as much in past interviews. But the main problem with this effort was that it was too long. (Waaaaaay too long!) And it didn’t feature the same sort of soulful production that the first one did, either. The Curse, indeed.