

Sessions for the album took place during 2008 to 2009 at Avex Honolulu Studio and several other recording studios, including Germano Studios, Oven Studios, and Roc The Mic in New York City, Kingdom Studios and Lava Studios in Cleveland, Midnight Blue Studios and South Beach Studios in Miami, The Holy Chateau in Perth, Australia, and Westlake Studio in Los Angeles. West's protégé Mr Hudson explained to The Times that he "won't get bothered there" compared to a major city such as New York or Los Angeles. Most of the album's recording sessions took place in Hawaii at Avex Honolulu Studio, in an effort to avoid leakage. Blueprint 3 would be Jay-Z's first album cover that did not feature his face on it. They then painted red onto the equipment where the projection of the bars was, and replaced the projector with a camera to achieve the correct perspective for the image. Rather than simply using Photoshop, the album's design team carefully stacked all the equipment in a corner then used a projector to create the bars. The cover consists of a large number of all-white instruments and recording tools stacked in a corner, with three red lines across the image. The official track list for Blueprint 3 was revealed on August 18, confirming the guest appearances from Kanye West, Rihanna, Drake, Kid Cudi, Young Jeezy, J. He also mentioned in an interview with DJ Semtex that his favorite song on the album is "Empire State of Mind". In a Billboard magazine interview, Jay-Z confirmed "What We Talkin' About", the album's intro, "Thank You", and "Already Home" as song names and collaborations with Australian dance group Empire of the Sun, rappers Drake and Kid Cudi and singer Rihanna. In January 2009, Jay-Z confirmed continued production of the album and admitted the leak of several songs. īy November 2008, he had finished the album but with lengthy negotiations with Def Jam, he went on to reworking it. In July 2009, Jay-Z confirmed The Blueprint 3 as the album's title during an interview with radio station Shade 45. But in an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine, Jay-Z called the statement "premature". On July 20, Timbaland, a frequent contributor to previous Jay-Z albums, told MTV News that he would be producing the whole album. In the intro, Clue says, "Off that Blueprint 3 baby!" However, a spokesperson for Jay-Z said that it was an old, unreleased song and that the recording of The Blueprint 3 had not yet started. The earliest hype over The Blueprint 3 came when DJ Clue released in January 2008 a mixtape song called "Ain't I", produced by Timbaland. (Death of Auto-Tune)", "Run This Town", "On to the Next One", and "Empire State of Mind" won a combined number of six Grammys at both the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards and 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. The album received a nomination for Best Rap Album, while four of its singles "D.O.A. It became Jay-Z's eleventh US number-one album, breaking the record he had previously shared with Elvis Presley. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 476,000 copies in its first week. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics and was a commercial success. All singles achieved chart success excluding the latter. (Death of Auto-Tune)", " Run This Town", " " Empire State of Mind", " On to the Next One", " Young Forever" and " A Star Is Born". The Blueprint 3 produced six singles: " D.O.A. The album also features guest appearances by Kanye West, Rihanna, Drake, Kid Cudi, Young Jeezy, J.

Production for the album took place during 2008 to 2009 at several recording studios and was handled by Kanye West, No I.D., The Neptunes, Jeff Bhasker, Al Shux, Jerome "J-Roc" Harmon, The Inkredibles, Swizz Beatz, and Timbaland. It is the third album in the Blueprint series, preceded by The Blueprint (2001) and The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). The Blueprint 3 is the eleventh studio album by American rapper Jay-Z, released September 8, 2009, on Roc Nation, through distribution from Asylum Records and Atlantic Records.
