Jay-Z Album Details Emerge

Young Guru, longtime sound engineer for Jay-Z, has shared a few details about Hov's highly-anticipated follow-up to 2009sBlueprint 3 album. While being sure to make it clear that Jay's upcoming project is not a 'concept album' in the traditional sense--it is definitely driven by a concept.

"Jay-Z is always working on stuff, it's a concept that I can't talk about but I'm marveled at how smart this guy is. When he told me the concept, I was like 'Why didn't I think of that?' It was just so simple," Guru says. "It's not a concept album though. It's not like American Gangster, it's not a Beatles concept album. It has a concept and a title, and the title and the concept fit him so well that people are going to be like 'Wow.'"

"I like certain writers because it takes me 8,000 paragraphs to get my full point across," he added. "When somebody can take what I just said and condense it into two sentences and still have the same effectiveness, that's a good writer. The simplicity of the title and the concept that it conveys is incredible."

Jay-Z Prepping Concept Album

Producer/engineer Young Guru recently revealed some details regarding two forthcoming releases involving Jay-Z. Not only did Guru talk about the highly-anticipated Jay/Kanye West album Watch the Throne, he also revealed that Jay's next solo project would be a concept album. 2007's American Gangster was a pseudo-concept LP, with Jay 'assuming' the persona of a drug dealer that he insisted was fictionalized. But according to Guru, Jay's in full creative mode with both new projects.

“Watch The Throne is almost done," Guru said. “’Ye’s records grow. If you listen to a Kanye record when if first starts it’s in one form. And he adds stuff, takes away stuff. He’s a real perfectionist. So that’s what he does, he grows his records. We’re in the process of just finalizing the album.”

“Once we get done with [Watch the Throne], Jay’s gonna start another album which I can’t tell you the concept of yet. [But] it’s an incredible concept,” Young Guru said, “It’s in a different lane; it’s a different thing for him to do. When people see it they’re gonna be like, 'Oh wow! He should have done that with, like, the first album!' It’s incredible.”

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