Upon further review this album is............average.
The production is there for the most part. Jay-Z, while not at his best, is solid enough that he can hold his own. The issue is the hooks. The hooks are atrocious on damn near every song. Considering Jay-Z is no longer at his peak where his lyricism, presence and charisma would shine so bright that a listener would overlook that, the bad hooks stand out a lot more. There are couple of really nice tracks, but a lot of snoozers and WTF moments. While you can see his vision of new-age sound that the BP series is synonymous with, but the end result is an album that feels a bit disjointed because the new sounds miss more than they hit, and the artists featured on the hooks often fall short at fleshing out the songs.