The Blueprint 2

*** out of 5 stars

In the midst of his 2001 battle of lyrics against Queens rapper Nas, Brooklyn-based Jay-Z dropped his sixth album, the hugely successful "The Blueprint." Jigga fans interested in purchasing "The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse" might anticipate more powerful songs like those from its predecessor. But "The Blueprint 2" doesn't feature songs like "Renegade" or "Takeover" and it's not the best album Jay-Z has ever made.

Disc 1, "The Gift," is what the title implies. It kicks off with "A Dream," featuring Faith Evans and the late Notorious B.I.G. Jay-Z hits hard with this opening track, a reputation he has established in previous albums. "A Dream" does justice to Biggie's legacy and makes "The Gift" worth unwrapping.

"What U Gonna Do" featuring Sean Paul, and "U Don't Know (Remix)" with M.O.P., help The Gift's "bounce-ability" measure up.

Jay-Z borrows a lot of inspiration from other artists on both discs of this album, and it works to his advantage except in one unfortunate case. "'03 Bonnie and Clyde" lifts beats and lyrics from 2Pac's "Me and My Girlfriend." With the "help" of guest vocalist Beyonce Knowles, Jay-Z turns 2Pac's powerful and metaphorical song about the love between a thug and his gun into a teenybopper radio hit about "me and my girlfriend." The beauty of 2Pac's metaphor was the song's subject, a killer and an outlaw, and in light of this, Jay-Z's remake is insulting to the original version.

But his other sampled songs do not subject the original artist to such indignities. Some are actually improved by his vocal flow. Sampled from Dr. Dre's "The Watcher," Jay-Z delivers "The Watcher 2" with the same hot beat but with his own unique lyrical spin.

Primarily, Jay-Z proves two things with this new album. First, he has a lot of friends - more than 10 songs feature other artists, including Lenny Kravitz and Outkast's Big Boi. His second accomplishment is making an oxymoronic album. Both a gift and a curse, "Blueprint 2" showcases Jay-Z as the perfect emcee with perfect beats on some tracks while fouling up others. The rapper could have saved himself some time if he had just made one album of good tracks instead of two with a few.