Given Kanye West's inclusion in this prestigious list, it seems ludicrous that Jay-Z could not find a spot. Two of Jay's albums from the 2000s—The Blueprint and The Black Album —are both part of that elusive hip-hop classics category. Perhaps Hova suffered from a ""what have you done for me lately"" vibe from voters, choosing to remember the tepid Kingdom Come or the solid but overproduced Blueprint 3.
Still, The Blueprint is the stuff of hip-hop legend. Recorded in only two days, the album introduced us to producers Kanye West and Just Blaze and featured only one guest, the incomparable Eminem.
In a time when hip-hop's mainstream success was determined more by teenyboppers than drug lords, Jay-Z still typified the anger and oppression of street warfare. Jay-Z wasn't doing 55 in a 54, he was flying at 90, and no one—coppers or otherwise—was going to slow him down.
