hings started looking grim for the sequel to Jay-Z’s phenomenal The Blueprint a few months back when “03 Bonnie & Clyde” hit the airwaves. The single was flat and boring, merely a poor Prince sample mixed with a hook that sounded more like Tupac theft than allusion. Compare this to “Izzo (H.O.V.A)”, the last album’s lead off single. “Izzo” was vibrant and alive, full of the energy, wit and personality that made The Blueprint so great. “03 Bonnie and Clyde”, on the other hand, does the same foreshadowing for The Gift and The Curse, but in this case it’s not a good thing.


The album begins with a guitar line that sounds like it was sampled from a Claritin commercial. After the melodramtic chorus and a few boring verses about advice from Biggie in a dream, the song turns into a vocal interpolation of “Juicy”, sans the “blow up like the World Trade” line of course. Why anyone would listen to this is beyond me. The definition of mediocre, the song all but ruins “Juicy” and recasts Jay-Z as Puffy circa ’97, raping Big’s legacy with songs that don’t even rival worst of his material.


“Guns & Roses” is the easily the most memorable song on the album, simply because it’s one of the worst songs of the year. With a Lenny Kravitz guest appearance and a Cake sample (!), Jay-Z has summoned all the crappiness that plagues today’s rock and roll and infected hip-hop. While Eminem worked hard to create “Lose Yourself” and “8 Mile”, two of the best-sounding infusions of rock and rap to date, Jay calls upon Lenny Kravitz, perhaps the most boring, lifeless performer in all of music history for his foray into rock.


The few successful songs on The Gift and the Curse have very little to do with Jay-Z. The first half-decent song on the album is “The Watcher 2”. The song features two of the most revered MCs in hip hop history, Dr. Dre and Rakim. Jay-Z’s verse on “The Watcher 2”, also produced by Dre, is a hollow retread of the material that was explored much more interestingly on The Blueprint; Jay’s transformation from crack dealer to star MC and his superiority over his detractors. However, thanks to Dre’s fine James Bond beat and the catchy hook courtesy of Truth Hurts, the song is a stand out. As with so many of their productions, “Excuse Me Miss”, “Fuck All Nite”, “Nigga Please” and “A Ballad for The Fallen Soldier” act more as a showcase for the talent of the Neptunes than the artist they’re working with. The Blueprint was produced almost exclusively by Kayne West, Just Blaze and Bink, whose mix of darker theatricalities and pop worked perfectly with Jay-Z’s flow and focus. Save for Timbaland’s work on “Hola Hovito”, on which Jay-Z’s personality still shined, the album was free of superstar production. The Neptunes and Jigga had previously worked together on “I Just Wanna Love U”, which was much more a joint effort than the four collaborations found here. Jay’s bemused life-of-the-celebrity verses meshed well with the Neptunes’ perfect pop beat and Pharell’s falsetto. “Fuck All Nite” is easily the most enjoyable on The Gift and the Curse , but it’s thanks to the Neptunes’ Prince pastiche that the song shines, not Jay’s unmemorable verses. In fact, all the Neptunes’ work on the album is even more reminiscent of Prince than usual. No matter how many times it’s been said, 2002’s success as a great year for pop is almost entirely owed to them.


“I Did It My Way”, which closes the first disc, recalls the now infamous “I’m the Sinatra of my day” line from “Hola Hovito”. The tune just serves as a painful reminder of the drop in quality between The Blueprint 2 and it’s predecessor. The Blueprint remains one of the few releases since the 90s that truly showcased the personality of its creator. In an era when garage flashback bands are being heralded as saviors and only a few producers, no matter how good they are, rule the airwaves, the album is a stunning feat of originality. Here, however, Jay-Z treads the same subject matter on which The Blueprint focused, but leaves the individuality behind. There are no attacks as brilliant as “Takeover”, nothing as playful as his rhyming of “motherfucker” seven times and nothing as buoyant as “Izzo”. In “A Dream”, Jay proclaims he’s “got the whole world mad at [him]”. But is that really true? The Gift and the Curse features 21 guest appearances from a variety of stars. The press certainly isn’t mad at him, The Blueprint had everyone from the Source to Pitchfork riding his jock. With all the attacks on comeback songs on the last album, you’d think all the beef Nas and Mobb Deep had with Jay would’ve been settled. He’s no longer on trial and he’s certainly financially successful. All the turmoil that fueled The Blueprint is done with. Why would Jay-Z release The Gift and The Curse as a double album when he is, ostensibly at least, at his lowest creatively? At least if he’d released it as a single album with all the Neptunes tracks it’d be another decent showcase for the producers. But instead, clocking in at over 100 minutes, Jay has crafted hip-hop’s Sandinista! . If The Blueprint proved that coming back is easy, The Blueprint 2 proves it’s difficult to stay on top.