Some Thoughts on Blaq Poet’s The Blaqprint

This album has been a long time coming. With barely any new Screwball music over the past few years and more and more rappers incapable of getting the party started (not the kind with fancy bottles and tight shirts but the kind where M.O.P music is the status quo and getting hit in the face with a bottle is not only happenstance but expected). I guess you know what my bachelor party is gonna look like.

Anyway, The Blaqprint is Blaq Poet and Primo doing what they do best – hard rhymes over murky samples. It’s been a long time since Premier’s done an album with all the production (Gang Starr’s Ownerz being the last) and I didn’t realize how much I missed albums like that until I heard The Blaqprint sampler (and if you want to get technical, Easy Mo Bee and Gemcrates both produced one cut on this 15 track opus). Keep in mind, samplers are the best and worst thing a rapper/producer/label can send out. It’s great because it at least gives you an idea of where the project is going and what it’s about. What’s terrible about it is that if it’s a really dope sampler, you obviously want the whole platter, which you don’t really get without some groveling to the artist/producer/label, and even then it’s no guarantee.

Anyway, here are some early thoughts on Blaq Poet’s The Blaqprint, an album that should definitely, definitely, definitely be copped for all members of your family. Don’t front, you know moms will love it!

“I-Getitin” is not only the standout cut on the album but one of the best tracks I’ve heard in a while. Talk about quotables. Listen to this cut off it (sorry, it’s off his sampler so it’s not the full version):

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Blaq Poet – I-Gititin

DJ Premier and Blaq Poet show the chemistry that made them indispensible together on Screwball classics like “F.A.Y.B.A.N.” and “Seen It All” on “Ain’t Nuttin Changed” (by the way, I wish every rapper would spell their tracks the way Poet does). Great video.

Poet drops an emotional cut with “Never Goodbye,” as he takes us through the three-way call with Primo and Marley as they broke the news that his Screwball partner and friend KL had passed away. It wouldn’t do KL or the song justice to play this off a sampler, even though I think it’s the full version, the audio quality isn’t there. Wait for the album to hear this one.

And just because KL passed away, it doesn’t mean his music’s not gonna live on. You’ll get to hear his patented raspy flow on “U Phucc’d Up,” which is the only cut that has a fellow Screwball member on it.

“Voices” has Poet channeling 2Pac with lines like, “Black Panther shit/Mixed with street poetry, I had to hit.” Again, it’s hard to say where he’s going with this, but if I had to go out on a limb I’m guessing the second verse would be to Biggie and the third verse to Pun or Big L. Poet hits us with another dope concept track with “Sichuwayshunz,” where he profiles the state of mind of “a thief, a mobster and a bum.” Here’s the thief’s perspective:

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Blaq Poet – Sichuwayshunz

I’m also glad I’m not anywhere near NYC when this project drops because I really don’t know how many liquor stores are gonna get knocked when “Let the Guns Blow” drops. Only one verse here and it’s still better than most albums that drop.

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The Blaqprint is a great album. How could it not be? You have 13 out of 15 tracks produced by DJ Premier, hopefully a few are equipped with the classic Primo rants blasting all of us for listening to wack music. Plus how could an album be wack that features KL, Lil’ Fame of M.O.P and the NYGz?

Bonus from the leak two weeks ago:

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Blaq Poet feat. N.O.R.E. – Hate

Does N.O. really drink boxed wine?

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4. Blaq Poet Season is Upon Us
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