The Blueprint is released

Why it matters

The Blueprint came out on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam on September 11, 2001. The release date is the date. Jay-Z released his sixth album, in New York, on the morning of the World Trade Center attacks. The album sold 427,000 copies in its first week despite the entire promotional schedule getting upended and most retail outlets in New York closed that day. The album is the one most people now consider Jay-Z's best. It is heavily produced by Kanye West and Just Blaze, who together create the soul-sample, sped-up-vocal aesthetic that would dominate East Coast rap for the next five years. Jay raps with the relaxed confidence of a writer who, by 2001, has nothing left to prove. "Takeover" (the Nas diss). "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" (the Jackson 5 sample). "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)," "Renegade" with Eminem (the song most people will tell you Eminem out-rapped him on), "Song Cry," "U Don't Know." The Library of Congress added The Blueprint to the National Recording Registry. You can put it on the day it dropped and the album still sounds like the entire industry exhaled into it.