The interesting thing about Blueprint is that Jay admits it's not his strongest lyrical album (bounce up like round ball, lol wut?).
In fact he went for a simple style on there, and some of it works great, and some of it doesn't.
If you listen to People Talkin' that came out the next year...that gave you a preview of the much improved flow and lyrics that he used on Blueprint 2, S. Carter mixtape, and The Black Album.
But Blueprint is still just so cohesive sonically that I still give it a slight edge to Stillmatic.
Hip-hop really benefited from both of those guys dropping classics so close, back-to-back like that.