On this day in 2003, Brooklyn’s own Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter released what was intended to be his final album, The Black Album. Billed as his retirement project, it played more like a victory lap — an ...

The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse was the seventh studio album released by rapper Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z. It was released on Nov. 12, 2002, on the Roc-A-Fella Records and Def Jam Recordings ...

Comeback albums in Hip Hop take many forms, from post-hiatus returns to post-controversy rebounds. Albums like JAY-Z's 4:44 and Gunna’s a Gift & a Curse reveal how artists channel personal growth into ...

Part II of The Seven Wonders of the Hip-Hop World highlights seven groundbreaking albums that reshaped rap from the 1990s through the 2010s. In part deux of my Seven Wonders of the Hip-Hop World, I ...