For those who haven’t kept up with popular music lately, Jay-Z has dropped another No. 1 album. The Blueprint, Jigga’s fourth straight debut at the top spot is his hottest since 1996’s Reasonable Doubt.

How good is The Blueprint? The Source Magazine’s awards system is measured in microphones a.k.a. mikes. One mike is trash, five is a hip-hop classic.

Only a handful of albums have garnered the five-mike-mark. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Outkast’s ATLiens, Nas, Illmatic and the Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death were all awarded five mics. What’d The Source give The Blueprint? Six mikes. Jigga earned six microphones and deserved every one of them.

Jay-Z started by changing the rap album formula. He cut out the intro, outro and all those stupid skits. Nothing but music, “nothing but hits,” as the sticker says on the album. It’s one thing to print it and be wrong, it’s another thing to print it and know it.

That’s downright cocky Jay-Z’s beyond cocky. The album opens with “The Ruler’s Back.” On it, Jigga addresses his recent legal problems and those that prosecuted him.

“I got great lawyers for cops who dress warm/ charges don’t stick to dude he’s teflon/ I’m too sexy for jail like I’m Right Said Fred/ I’m not guilty now give me back my bread/ Mr. District Attorney I’m not sure if they told you/ I’m on TV everyday where the hell could I go to/ Hov don’t run/ Hov stand and fight/Hov a soldier/ Hov been fighting his whole life.”

After letting the prosecution know what he thinks, he sets his sights on Mobb Deep and Nas, who lyrically assaulted Jigga earlier in the year. “Takeover” is one of the great battle raps to drop in a long time. It goes beyond Makaveli’s “Bomb 1st” and every Canibus dis L.L. Cool J ever put out. The track samples The Doors “Five to One” and KRS One’s “Sound of Da Police.”

These are two unlikely combinations but Jay-Z and Kanye West make it a hot track. With the heavy bass beat and Jim Morrison’s vocals in the background, it’s a hot track.

Mobb Deep takes some lyrical punches but Jay-Z saved the lyrical hollow points for Nas.

“You went from Nasty Nas to Esco’s trash/ had a spark when you started but know you’re just garbage/ fell from top ten to not mentioned at all/ till your body guards ochie Wally, verse better than yours.”

But it doesn’t stop there. Jay-Z gives his own reviews of Nas’ four albums.

“Four albums in 10 years I can divide/ That’s one I’ll say two/ two of them’s was due/ one was ahh/the other was Illmatic/that’s one hot album every 10 year average/and that’s so lame/ switch up your flow your stuff is garbage/what are you trying to kick, knowledge?”

Jay-Z switches up the tempo from battle raps to being sinisterly smooth on “Girls, Girls, Girls.” He runs up and down the multitude of different women he has in his ever- growing harem.

Dropping the hook are Q-Tip, Biz Markie and Slick Rick, three of the four guests on The Blueprint.

Yet another switch in the rap album formula, Jay-Z leaves his entire Rocafella family on last year’s Roc La Familia.

No Memphis Bleek, no Beanie Siegel-only Jigga man. Every track on this album is hot.

\From front to back the only song that necessitates the fast forward button is “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and that’s because it’s on the radio every fifteen minutes.

Make sure to check out the pair of hidden tracks at the end. “Breathe Easy” and a remix of “Girls, Girls, Girls” follow up “Blueprint” to wrap this classic album.

The Blueprint is the hot album hip-hop fans have been waiting for since Biggie died. Since he passed, no one had been worth of being tops in the rap game. It was Rakim and KRS One and flowed up to Tupac and Biggie.

Now Jay-Z makes a strong claim and sits atop the scene.

While Eminem has been selling copies like crazy he loses points for killing his wife on wax.

That’s just a little too much. Now that Jigga reigns atop hip-hop, let’s hope he’s not taken too early like Biggie and Pac.