Time To Get Manly 57: Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt

I randomly ran across a list of what Esquire magazine claims are "The 75 Albums Every Man Should Own." In this series of posts, I'll explore these manly, manly sounds.

Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt

Jay-Z's 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt is considered the blueprint for a new era in rap and hip-hop. This is, of course, confusing since he also released an album in 2001 called The Blueprint and then followed it up the next year with The Blueprint 2: Revenge of the Fallen. He got tired of the whole "Blueprint variations" thing for a few years, but then remembered "everybody loves a trilogy!" and called his 2009 album The Blueprint: Dark of the Moon. All three Blueprint albums were directed by Michael Bay, but only the first two featured Megan Fox.