During a recent interview with Billboard, New York rapper Jay-Z revealed the thought process behind The Blueprint trilogy and explained why there was a gap between Blueprint II and Blueprint III.

“I wanted the Blueprint series to be a trilogy because of what it represented,” Hova said. 

“The first Blueprint was the soul samples I grew up on, my blueprint. Then The Blueprint 2 was me searching for all the different types of music I like. But I ain’t have a reason to do the third one, so I didn’t do it for a while. But it was just fitting right now where I am in my career for me to set the Blueprint for my next journey.”

Blueprint 3, Hova’s eleventh studio album, was released on September 8 of last year, and sold 476,000 copies in its first week. Empire State Of Mind, the third single released from the album, was Jay-Z’s first single to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where he was listed as the lead artist.