In stores March 9th.

1. Intro
2. Traffic
3. Flickin
4. Out To Lunch feat. The Kid Daytona
5. Bougie Girls feat. Russoul
6. Jukebox feat. MC Lyte
7. L_O_V_E
8. Will II Win f/Marsha Ambrosius
9. Take Over The World feat. Just Blaze & Colin Munroe (co-produced by Just Blaze)
10. Fresh Academy feat. Chip Tha Ripper & Donnis
11. Simple Life feat. Amanda Diva
12. Running feat. Tim William
13. Do It All Again (I Am)
14. I Am (Reprise)
15. Rise & Shine feat. Russoul

All tracks were produced by Double-O (and he didn’t use any samples.)

Definitely looking forward to this album as the last two were two of the dopest and most slept on albums of their respective years of release.

It doesn’t get any better than this at all. Cam’ron’s original SDE album cover/ad which featured the NBA logo holding a gun. This could never come out because David Stern and his lawyers would never let this go down but this album cover is one of my favorites. Hardest censored album cover of all time. Sports, Drugs & Entertainment.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, nonethless sometimes the pictures are deemed inappropriate even to represent the harsh realities that appear on the album. Ever since the days of Criminal Minded & By All Means Necessary we’ve seen rap albums get scrutinized for controversial images on album covers. While we haven’t seen a gun on the cover of a rap album since the days of Boogie Down Productions we have seen Tupac on a cross, a la Jesus Christ & we’ve also witnessed an Ice T album cover depict a White boy listening to rap music in the midst of a home invasion in which Blacks are attacking Whites (presumably the boy’s parents).

Unfortunately a few of my favorite rap album covers were censored and could never be released. In 1997 Master P released Ghetto D in which the original album cover depicted a crack addict sitting on a curb and smoking from a glass pipe, was recalled from store shelves. It was promptly replaced by the collage style cover. As crazy as the original cover was it accurately portrayed the albums content.

Jay-Z Explains the concept of the Blueprint 3 cover, so it looks like the graphic designer simply took influences from U2 & Secret Machines, bc Jay-Z mentions nothing about it.

Previously: Niggaz, Niggaz, Niggaz is Bitin’ Off Ya Album Cover
Props MTV

Raekwon feat Ghostface Killah-Shark Niggaz

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hmmmmm, a few hours ago everyone saw the Jay-Z Blueprint 3 album cover and while it seemed unique and different in the realm of hip hop, clearly,it became clear after doing my research it wasn’t very original. Jigga is still swagger jacking huh? It was bad enough with this, but then you got niggaz son on the real, Yaknowhati’msayin? niggaz niggaz niggaz niggaz is bitin off your album cover and shit. Jigga has moved on another level of jacking, no longer jacking niggaz…..This time the swagger jacking comes from U2’s No Line on the Horizon and Secret Machines’ Now Here is Now Here albums. It’s amazing how Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 Drops this fall. Just in time huh?

All Jokes aside, the Blueprint 3 album cover is dope to me regardless of the influence or quote, unquote swagger jacking. As long as it’s done in an artistic manner it’s dope. Hip Hop started from borrowing pieces of things from other genres of music. Why should album covers be any different? Some of my favorite album covers were influenced by others. (Think Redman Dare Is a Darkside—>OG Funkadelic-Maggot Brain or Camp Lo’s Uptown Saturday Night——>OG Marvin Gaye-I Want You)

I’m a little late on everything today, I was out of town, but here is the Jay-Z Blueprint 3 album cover. Anyone notice that unlike the previous 2 covers, there’s nothing Blue on this cover. Besides that I think the album cover is dope. We need more original album covers like this, rather than artist just putting there face on the cover.