So, this is an unlikely pairing. But each of these albums has been staring me in the face for the last little bit. Here goes…

Ghostface Killah
Ghostdini Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City
(Def Jam, 2009)

At some point Ghostface figured that he was all grown up and needed to inject his work with a healthful dose of soul music. It’s not a bad idea – nor a new one. And even when contrasted with some early Wu Tang efforts, there are tracks here on Ghostdini Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City that could be confused for some work from the RZA, but not too many.

The grittiness is gone for the most part. In lieu, Ghostface works out a spate of songs about lovin’ girls and doin’ awful, awful things to ‘em in order to make ‘em scream. Some of it’s comical – “Stapleton Sex” might even make you uncomfortable if the track pops on while sitting around with a lady friend.

Anyway, the tracks might not be to everyone’s liking, or even the lyrical content, but Ghostface can still rap. That’s not a question. And really, this disc pretty easily surpasses U-God’s work from earlier in the year. And perhaps that’s why Ghostface has already signed on to collabo with Raekwon and Method Man. We’ll see if that happens.

What’s most surprising though, when considering this disc and Jay’s is the fact that the production credits on The Blueprint 3 looks much more impressive.

Jay-Z
The Blueprint 3
(Roc Nation, 2009)

As Jay-Z’s first release of his own on Roc Nation, The Blueprint 3 sports No Id, Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, Timbaland and the Nepunes (who I can do without) turning production in work.

“Thank You,” a Kanye and No Id production, comes off sounding of a different era when contrasted with some of the other, better known efforts here – I’m looking at you “Death of Autotune.” The track finds Jay running through some thank yous while figuring that he’s cut from another cloth. And regardless of whether or not everyone’s aware, Jay was ready to smash some emcees, but the game being what it is today, he just sat around and let ‘em do it to themselves. Right.

The beat here, though, laid back, utilizing a tuba and some slight orchestration isn’t really a harbinger of what follows. It’s all future funk and pop nonsense elsewhere apart from “Already Home,” which features Kid Cudi. And despite the fact that Cudi doesn’t really do too much for the track, Jay works well in the setting. At times, here and even on “Thank You,” he sounds a bit like Eminem (or vice versa), which surely isn’t intentional. But considering the fact that Em sounds drastically different than he did a decade ago, there’s probably nothing to it apart from my reading too deeply into stuff.

Regardless, the arc of change over the Blueprint albums might not be remarkable, nor qualify Jay for canonization, but he certainly kept fans happy and made a few dollars along the way.