Not only was 2011 the biggest year in the hip-hop career of Blueprint (born Al Shepard), it was a year full of poetic justice.

It took roughly five years for the former RJD2 cohort to release what has become his signature album, Adventures in Counter-Culture, to great acclaim nationwide. A recording artist with Rhymesayers, where he shares bills with labelmates like Atmosphere and Brother Ali, ’Print’s hiatus left him with a challenging re-entry into a hip-hop world that had changed drastically since his last album.

Not only did he embrace the opportunity as a chance to re-invent himself as an artist, drawing from his gospel roots by singing his own hooks and laying down clever keyboard and synthesizer loops, he spewed the same no-bulls**t rhymes that grabbed the ears of the underground crowd in his early career.

This year was the perfect confluence of art and commerce for Blueprint; Counter-Culture’s gritty lead single “Radio Inactive” drew strong feedback for its snarling criticism of the industry, while bouncy second single “So Alive” made its premier to the world on MTV2.

Now, he faces the next phase in his legendary career with a new focus and a new sobriety.

After spending almost five years between albums, was it kind of weird to switch into touring mode? It almost creates a different take on the music, I imagine.

It’s different, but I feel like I was more ready now than ever. The fact that I stopped drinking a year before the record came out helped me be mentally ready to tour in a different way, and that’s why it’s easier for me to tour now than it was then. When you’re [in Columbus] and you’re drinking, just getting up and doing what you’re supposed to do every day is hard; when you’re doing it twice as big every night, it’s even harder to stay on the road for longer and longer. I was more prepared and more into it, so it’s been easier. When you work on something for so long, the test is, ‘How do people feel about it? Is it hitting the part that I wanted it to hit?’ That in itself has been encouraging to a point where it’s made me want to stay out there even more: I feel like it validates the work I put in. It kind of says that in this market when people are putting out mixtapes every six months or something, a person can take five years to make an album and it still hits its mark.

After all the old battles and backpack days, it’s pretty surreal to see you rocking a stage in Brussels singing and holding a key-tar … you’re not just redefining yourself on record, you’re redesigning Blueprint as a performer, too.

That was something I started maybe a year before the album came out. I started having talks with the label on how to present it to the people because they were very much aware. They were like, ‘OK, you’ve been gone five years, so much has changed. People still know you from these things, but you have to approach this situation as if you are a new artist. Do as many different things as you can do, you shouldn’t hold back on anything, especially in a live setting.’ Back in the day, it was more of a two-turntables-and-an-emcee kind of show and I feel like I was doing that about as good as I can do it. Now, the show has changed because it’s more personal and it’s more musical and it’s more of a performance art than a participatory experience. You know where as before, you go to a Blueprint show and he’s interacting with you, he’s making sure you’re involved … now, at the beginning of each show I’ll say, “Hey, my name’s Blueprint, thanks for coming out, I’d like to share my music with you.” And then at the end I say, “Thanks for coming out, thanks for letting me share my work.” That’s it. I might just present it like, ‘Hey, this is my music, you may like it, you may not – I don’t give a f**k.’ It’s a challenge: How do you make it personal and passionate without selling it? Because that will kind of cheapen the expression. How do you present something really personal without looking for people’s acceptance?

It seems like getting to deliver the material to audiences is kind of invigorating for you.

The old way of performing was one of the things that frustrated me about everything that was going on around me; it made me do the record because I was tired of all of that sht. Same sht that led me to drinking – I was bored. I had mastered that style of show. Most of my problems when I was at the bar every night, chasing girls, drinking, were because I was bored with what I was doing.

You weren’t fulfilled.

Yeah, exactly. And I’ve started to see the way people talk about me has started to change, which is what I wanted. I wasn’t sure at the beginning of the process if it was gonna happen. No one had ever said seeing me was an “experience” before. Now people are like, “I was at your show, it was a fcking experience, it was the sht.” Some people are coming to my shows telling me afterwards that it made them cry, that it’s so close to home, and I was so passionate and it was so well orchestrated.

Does that broaden your perspective on how your music affects the world around you?

Yeah, I talk to kids now about quitting alcohol, and I never thought I would be a spokesperson for that. I put out a video about quitting and from that point forward I started meeting kids in every city and I started meeting people that run organizations; I talked to all of these people and it was something that I never thought would happen. I thought I would just quit and I thought I should tell people so they don’t expect me to continue to carry on like this in public, but I didn’t realize it was bigger than that. I am a role model to some people. If rappers and entertainers say we’re drinking whatever the f*ck the hot drink is, somebody’s gonna buy that drink. Pass the Courvoisier, that’s what Busta Rhymes did, and all of a sudden hip-hop’s drinking Courvoisier. I underestimated the power that was there when I said I don’t drink anymore. It’s okay, I’m 100-percent committed to my art. And I don’t care what people think, I don’t need that in my life. I was worried about alienating the people who did drink, like I don’t want to look like a square. But little did I know, there’s a ton of people who don’t drink who felt alienated by me drinking already. I didn’t look at it from that aspect. Anyone who drinks ain’t going to be angry that you don’t drink – it’s, ‘Hey, more for me’ (laughs).

And you weren’t expecting that at all, you were just quitting drinking because you were like, ‘I can’t do this anymore’?

Yeah, I didn’t think it would be like part of my narrative that defines me. It’s this journey. Now people look at me and they’re like, ‘Oh sh*t, this guy put out records that were legendary classics in underground hip-hop in 2002 and 2003 and sold a bunch and then he disappeared. He made a bunch of music and then he started drinking too much, he could feel he was an alcoholic and then he quit and now this is his comeback.’ It’s like a complete story now.

When you were a kid, what …

I didn’t want to be a rapper. When I was a kid, I either wanted to be an astronaut or an electrician (laughs).

Ha! You could have been an electrician on the space shuttle.

(laughs) I think I only wanted to be an electrician because my dad’s friend was an electrician and it sounded dope, like ‘Wow! Electricity!’ (laughs). I never looked at music as seriously then, when I was really young, because all my music was from the church. My mom could sing really well. When I first started singing, my brother, he was nine years older than me, he had a quartet, an a cappella group at my church. I remember idolizing him from the time that I was 10. I was 13, and I started singing with him and they were all like 21, 22, 23. I started singing lead in the group that I used to idolize. My family was always musical, but nobody pushed me to be a musician. They were supportive though. No one ever paid that much attention, until I would say, ‘Hey, you know I have a show. Me and my buddies, three of us, we’ve got a rap show.’ And that thing progressed pretty fast to where it was like, ‘Hey mom, I’m thinking about not working and doing this for a while,’ and she’s been nothing but supportive.

How many moments did you have over the last 15 years where you’re just like, ‘OK, I’m out; I can’t do this anymore?’

Man, every day. Even if I know I will be financially straight for the next two years, I still know sh*t can go wrong at any moment. I’ve always kind of looked at it like that; I think that’s because I never set out to do this from an early age. I just kind of went from DJing to rapping to making beats. I was like, ‘This is cool,’ but I never really looked at it like this could be a job or a career. I never would have thought. I mean, 2012 will be my 10th year straight as a full-time musician – that’s longer than any job I’ve ever had. I’ve been most successful at this career than anything else I’ve ever done. It’s weird. I mean, it’s beautiful – it’s not a complaint.

How important is it for you to be known in your own city? A month ago you’re on stage in Brussels, and now you’re back in your basement in Columbus under dimmer light.

Columbus always was the number one thing; the main thing I think that inspired me was local guys that were respected in Columbus. When I first started making beats, I would go to the Hip-Hop Expo and I remember that was the first time I saw [Columbus legend] Camu [Tao] and Copywrite; I remember nudging one of my friends and saying, ‘Man, look at these dudes. If we could just be respected like them … that’s it.’ That’s all we wanted. Forever.

What’s the plan for the next five years? Maybe a comedy album?

In 2004, that was my plan. A lot of the reason I did songs like “Big Girls Need Love Too” and “Neighborhood Weed Man,” I was studying comedy and I was trying to apply it. I was just doing silly sht on stage for the fans, and my friends were like, ‘Man, have you ever thought about studying comedy just to apply what you do, because you’re funny as fck.’ So I started studying, I started going to the Tuesday night thing at Scarlet and Gray. I look at comedians as like the most intelligent thinkers on Earth. With rappers, it’s different. We see something, we reflect on it and we can reflect on it as is, and it can work. Comedians, you have to see it, deconstruct it, recognize the funny parts and then put it back together. It requires more layers, to me. The people who are making the most impact are the comedians; look at Jon Stewart, Colbert, Bill Maher.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t rapping?

Some kind of small business. I think whatever I’m gonna do after this, is hopefully be an entrepreneur of some sort. I don’t really see myself going back to just being a nameless Joe for a huge corporation. I didn’t fit in [the corporate world] I think mostly because how I quantify success was different than how they did. To me, success is about learning and the journey, an artistic view of success … they don’t give a goddamn about your fcking journey, man. Those motherfckers just want sh*t to work (laughs).