Jay-Z Enlists Alicia Keys & Young Jeezy, "Blueprint 3" Tracklisting Released

Hov officially released the tracklisting for BP3 via his website, www.jay-z.com, Tuesday (August 18) evening.

Tracklising:
1. "What We Talkin' About" featuring Luke Steele
2. "Thank You,"
3. "D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)"
4. "Run This Town" featuring Rihanna & Kanye West
5. "Empire State Of Mind" featuring Alicia Keys
6. "Real As It Gets" featuring Young Jeezy,
7. "On To The Next One" featuring Swizz Beatz
8. "Off That" featuring Drake
9. "A Star Is Born" featuring J. Cole
10. "Venus VS. Mars"
11. "Already Home" featuring Kid Cudi
12. "Hate" featuring Kanye West
13. "Reminder"
14. "So Ambitious" featuring Pharrell
15. "Young Forever" featuring Mr. Hudson. (Jay-Z)

Now that Jay-Z has left Def Jam, Hov's former label is looking to cash in on Jay one last time. Def Jam will release The Blueprint Collector's Edition consisting of Jigga's first two classic albums, The Blueprint and The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse. Much like Mariah's collector's set, Jay-Z's edition will be packaged in a collectible slipcase with a poster. There will be space to insert a third CD. The Blueprint Collector's Edition releases September 8, three days before The Blueprint 3 arrives on Friday, September 11 through Atlantic Records. (Rap-Up)

Artwork for BP3 landed online in early August.

Jay-Z posted the above image -- a cornucopia of white-painted instruments -- on his official website, which implies he'll be using the graphic as the cover of his eagerly anticipated The Blueprint 3. The cover echoes BP3's aesthetic, Jay's reliance on live instruments -- he brought a 10-piece band with him for his All Points West performance -- as opposed to studio trickery, which Jigga officially declared 'D.O.A' with his first BP3 single. (Rolling Stone)

Jay later confirmed the album's cover art and described its significance.

"These things are like the forgotten pieces in hip-hop," Hov said in an interview. "It's still about music. It's not about radio, making gimmicks -- it's still about making music. Those things are piled in the corner. These are the forgotten things about music...The three stripes that everybody is asking about is made from the original [number] three. The first three they made on the wall was someone carving. If you look at [the number] three, all they did was connect lines. The whole thing about this album, how I approached it, is that I wanted to make a new classic to start that all over again -- to go back to making classic albums like the ones we grew up listening to." (MTV)

Check out Jay-Z speaking on "Run This Town" below: