The Blueprint 3 won't be legally available until Friday, September 11, but you can listen to the whole thing, RIGHT NOW, only on 'The Leak. (Death of Auto-Tune)' and 'Run This Town,' both of which are already burning up the charts. And not only does Jay draft the hippest artists, but he's laying out some of the hottest singles of the summer with songs like 'D.O.A. On The Blueprint 3, Shawn Carter goes throwback, giving up a nod to the soul grooves he grew up on, but is also future-forward and features some of the best in the music industry, from Rihanna and Kanye West to Kid Cudi and Alicia Keys. Now, the long-reigning king of hip-hop has returned with his eleventh – yes, eleventh! – studio album and much like fine wine, Jay-Z is only getting better with age. When HOVA ditched his retirement plans a few years ago and came back to hard-hitting beats full-time, we couldn't have been happier. In 1999, Jay-Zs next album titled, Life and Times of S.
This album of Jay-Z got over five million sales and won a Grammy award. His next album, Hard Knock Life, was the greatest hit of his entire career. On to the Next One featuring Swizz Beatz (4:16) This was an even greater success and both albums went platinum. Real as It Gets featuring Young Jeezy (4:12) Empire State of Mind featuring Alicia Keys (4:36) Run This Town featuring Rihanna and Kanye West (4:27) What We Talkin' About featuring Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun (4:03) It was originally slated for a late 2008 release, but then Jay decided he didn't want to rush the album, and pushed it back to 2009. The Blueprint 3 is promised for a 2009 release, with Kanye West reportedly on board to produce most, if not all, of the album's tracks.