West says the success of 'Swagger Like Us' pressured Jay to make sure 'everything was on that level.'
By Shaheem Reid, with reporting by Jasmine Dotiwala
Kanye West and Jay-Z
Photo: Lester Cohen Archive/ WireImage/ Getty Images
Jay-Z has all but confirmed that
The Blueprint 3 is not coming out in 2008. When Hov premiered his new record,
"History," on Angie Martinez's Hot 97 New York radio show last week, Martinez playfully reminded him that he was supposed to be coming out with an album this year. Jigga countered that he'd never told anyone that the album would be dropping this year and didn't know where the speculation came from.
Well, maybe we got the idea from the fact that two big singles from the album have been heralded on the hip-hop scene for months already,
"Jockin' Jay-Z" and
"Swagger Like Us" (and though the latter appeared on T.I.'s
Paper Trail, Jay has promised it would be on
B3 too).
While in
Europe for the EMAs last week,
Kanye West, who has produced a gaggle of tracks for Jay's new album, shed a little light on what's holding up the highly anticipated album.
"I mean, it's phenomenal," West told MTV Base. "We went in and we done the whole album. He wanted to do a few more joints, so he kinda pushed it back. Now we're gonna go in and just work on some more records. So I got some more stuff to kill it with! I think [Jay pushed the album back because] 'Swagger' just did so incredible. We wanted to go up [and make sure] everything was on that level."
Speaking of albums we were checking for. Don't think we forgot about 'Ye's would-be fourth LP,
Good Ass Job. For years he had talked about the follow-up to
Graduation. Obviously, he changed his changed his mind and decided to depart from the school theme for
808s & Heartbreak, which drops on Monday, November 24. As for a return to
Good Ass Job, Kanye says he hasn't set his sights that far yet.
"Well, I wouldn't put the pressure on myself to do another album; it's like whatever happens, happens," he said humbly. "I'm still thinking of a lot of music. I mean, I'm thinking of a lot of lyrics, and if it comes to me, I just go into the studio and do it and then drop it now. So it's not a whole bunch of gimmicks and marketing, I let the other people do the marketing. ... I'm just like, 'Dude, just figure out how to put the music out.' "
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