“Renegade” serves as a “fuck you” to critics who said JAY-Z had forgotten his ghetto roots with his new found riches, and moralizers who said Eminem was a bad influence on children.

This was considered a major coup for Eminem, who had released The Marshall Mathers LP a year earlier to widespread controversy. Not only was Em the only guest rapper on the whole album, but he produced the beat (to which a song with Detroit rapper Royce Da 5'9" had already been recorded.)

The widespread perception, popularized by Nas, was that Eminem killed Jay, but that’s debatable, Em spits very in-your-face, overt punchlines, while Jay drops metaphors, multiple entendre gems that can only be appreciated by taking a closer look. However, Jay admitted in an interview that Em’s verse was better, he stated -

“No, I think Eminem is very intelligent rapper… It’s just, when you make 4000 songs.. I’m constant collaborator, you know and… some people gonna have better days. It’s just the way it is. But if we count the amount as the competitor and if we count the amount of records that I’ve been on versus people who had better performances then it’s gonna be 400 to 3.”

Rebelliously spelled “Renagade” on the back of The Blueprint.

An extended brag-rap exchange between Kanye and Lil Wayne off Kanye’s Graduation. The two brag about their high-cash lifestyles, and, of course, the ease with which they create hit songs

“Barry Bonds” got dated real quick: it was written around the time Bonds broke the all-time MLB home run record in the summer of 2007, but soon after the album was released, he was hit with steroid allegations. The song’s ironic in two respects: it was never itself released as a single, so it never had a chance to be “another hit,” and Bonds didn’t actually get many hits because teams would usually walk him instead of letting him hit homers.

“Barry Bonds” features a sample from “Long Red” by Mountain

The three principal artists of Jay-Z’s newly-formed Roc Nation record label—Kanye West, Rihanna, and the Hov himself—announce to the world that they “run the town.” Jay explained the clear nature of the track in an interview with Tim Westwood, saying:

We basically run this town. It’s myself, Rihanna and Kanye. [That’s] pretty much it.

The song made its radio debut on July 24, 2009 at 9:11am to coincide with the album’s planned release date of September 11, 2009. Rihanna’s contribution was her first musical appearance following a domestic violence altercation with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown earlier that year.

“Run This Town” was a highly successful single for Hov, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the charts in the United Kingdom. Officially it has been certified 2x Platinum by the RIAA, with Billboard estimating sales of 3,490,000. RTT won two Grammy Awards in 2010, for “Best Rap/Sung Collaboration” and “Best Rap Song.” The video game Battlefield 4 used the track as its theme song in 2013.

A meditation about how the desire for money and power corrupts the ghetto and all of its inhabitants, leading to violence and betrayal.

The song title means “da evils” but is spelled similar to “devils,” emphasizing that the temptation of money is similar to the temptations of Satan.

DJ Premier samples “Go Back Home” by Allen Toussaint for the beat, along with vocal samples from Snoop Dogg and Prodigy of Mobb Deep. Jay says this is possibly his favorite song, and he likes how they sampled a gospel record on a song about devils and temptation, saying:

I guess it’s fitting that it’s a gospel record, because it’s almost a religious experience

In an interview with Complex, Premier recalled how Jay picked the samples you hear on the hook:

That’s totally personal and dear to him. He called me and told me how important this record was…

He told me all the scratches he wanted me to cut. I don’t think he spins, but just the fact that he was able to come up with that hook, I guess Jay-Z has a little bit of DJ in him too. I just had to convert it to the Premier style. He said, ‘I want minor keys, almost sad.’ He just came here, laid it out, and never wrote it down.

Roc-A-Fella artist Memphis Bleek talked about how “D'Evils” impacted him:

My favorite song on the album had to be “D'Evils.” Hands down. I stole a copy of the song, I liked it so much, to where Jay and B-High came to my apartment, like, ‘Yo, I heard you giving out copies of the song, the word came back to you.’ They was ready to beat me up, drop me from even hangin' with them ‘cause they like 'you a thief.’ But they didn’t understand, I needed that record for my soul. I need it. You’re talking to me.