As Nas dutifully informed us on "Ether", both KRS-One and Jay-Z made an album called Blueprint. The two of them also penned crucial lines regarding 1988: "fresh for 88, you suckas" introduced Boogie Down Productions' By All Means Necessary, one of many essential records from what's considered the greatest year in hip-hop history. It was also the height of the crack epidemic and Jay's boast that "I'm still spendin' money from 88" inspired many of his peers to back up their hustling résumé with similar claims. That's a lot of history for an underground producer/MC from a humble Midwestern city to invoke, and Columbus native Blueprint's otherwise personable debut, 1988, predictably suffered from it, hamstrung by Golden Age hagiography and pedantic moralizing about the current landscape. While the title of Adventures in Counter-Culture is a fair indication that he hasn't gotten over his hang-ups, it's fortunately a bit of false advertising: This is an ambitious, diverse, and less agenda-driven record.
It's heartening to hear Blueprint acknowledging how things have changed not just since 1988 but 1988 as well. Heavy-handed references to "Welcome to the Terrordome" and Do the Right Thing are wisely exchanged for a wide range of sounds that can occasionally work against Adventures by making it sound too diffuse: Electro touches up against holistic R&B sessions, aerobic funk giving way to trudging goth that owes much to Eminem. For all of his carping about radio trends, Blueprint indulges in the most prominent of all-- rebranding himself as a rap&B hybrid-- but the results are surprisingly impressive: Whether within the joyous rave-up of "So Alive" or the fluttering guitar lines and brushed drums of "Welcome Home", 'Print's supple vocals sound less like pop-radio hedgebetting than something that similar curmudgeon-turned-crooner Phonte accomplished quite nicely on recent Foreign Exchange albums.
Happily, he's still got too much of his soul and lyricism invested in the rap game to make that leap quite yet. In the tradition of Rhymefest or Obie Trice or Black Milk, Blueprint's occasionally animated flow is ultimately backed up by heartland humility, self-reliance cut with a large dose of self-deprecation. Hustle isn't a metaphor for him, but a quantification of worth. But as on 1988, his most compelling target is himself-- single "Keep Bouncing" is a thoroughly written tribute to barely functional alcoholism that's either as funny or sad as you want it to be. Even if it's focused on how a minor celebrity can score free drinks from fans and low-level groupies, brief asides about shitty bar bands and intoxicated misanthropy ("I probably wouldn't kick it with y'all if I was sober/ Vagrant, dick out pissin' in the corner") make it painfully real.
It's understandable that Blueprint pines on "The Clouds" to advance beyond the limited financial rewards of the indie scene he so compellingly raps about, but as with 1988, his likeability is inversely related to the scope of his targets. When he zooms in, a face-to-face bank exchange on "Stole Our Yesterday" becomes a heavy and thoughtful micro-drama of technological disenfranchisement. But on "Keep Bouncing", we get an inexplicable pop-rap rant about celebutante culture that works on the level of Good Charlotte's "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous".
That sort of duality is most pronounced on "Radio-Inactive", a dramatic, regal march that finds Blueprint reveling in success that was undoubtedly hard-won. And yet, as fans tell him, "you're the main reason we don't turn our radios on," it comes off like preordained back-patting-- the lines about endless nights shaking hands and passing out flyers feel based in experience, while nearly any time he takes shots at sucker DJs, gutless execs, or pop rappers, it comes off as playing to type and making hay out of strawmen. Blueprint can be so effective when he's down to earth, it's a shame he feels the need to step up on a soapbox.
