The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse

The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse is the seventh studio album by American rapper Jay-Z. It was released on November 12, 2002, by Roc-A-Fella Records and Island Def Jam Music Group. It is a double album, consisting of the pop rap-oriented The Gift and the hardcore hip-hop-focused The Curse. Like The Blueprint, it was primarily produced by Just Blaze and Kanye West. Guest appearances include West, Faith Evans, the Notorious B.I.G, Dr. Dre, Rakim, Beyoncé, Sean Paul, Lenny Kravitz, Beanie Sigel, and Scarface, among others. The Blueprint 2 debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 545,000 units, and received triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. It was supported by two singles that peaked within the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100: "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Excuse Me Miss". It received lukewarm reviews from music critics, who praised Jay-Z's performances, but found it inconsistent and criticized the length. In 2013, Jay-Z said he considers it one of his worst albums due to its overabundance of tracks. A one-disc reissue, Blueprint 2.1, was released in 2003. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blu...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)