

With the help of brilliant music minds like Kanye West, Just Blaze, and the Neptunes, Jay dictated the course of hip-hop and emerged as a keen songwriter who knew exactly how to maximize the strengths of his collaborators. He released at least one project annually, while nurturing promising new talent like Philadelphia-based rappers Freeway and Beanie Sigel. The sound fit Jay just as well as one of Biggie’s oversized Coogi sweaters might have - there are hints of genius, but he was clearly still finding his voice and place in the art form.įrom 1998 through 2003, Jay was unstoppable.


1, which took more than a few cues from the flashy rap aesthetic that Puff Daddy had been proliferating through his Bad Boy label. He followed that with the inconsistent, overly polished In My Lifetime, Vol. He’d adopt a slower, more conversational pace for his 1996 masterpiece debut LP, Reasonable Doubt, a project that was self-released after his undeniable talent was denied by every major label he approached. Jay moved in and out of rapper circles in the late ’80s and early ’90s, popping up on songs with his mentor, Jaz-O, and Big Daddy Kane. But he continued to develop his craft, taking stock of hip-hop’s evolving aesthetics and mastering hyperspeed raps in the vein of East Coast rap duo Das EFX.
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But as an adolescent, he put his hobby on the backburner and crack sales on the front. He’d spend his time banging on the kitchen table at his 534 Flushing Avenue apartment, rhyming to the percussion he created. Jay-Z’s adolescence coincided with the Reagan ’80s. His merging of thinking-man street raps with commercial hits paved the way for artists like Kendrick Lamar and J. His catalogue contains some of the most potent imagery and lucid storytelling about poverty and the desperation that it breeds, all while dominating mainstream pop music, in a delicate tightrope act that almost no one else has ever been able to manage for the span of time that Jay has. And now, two decades (and two dozen solo LPs) later, Jay-Z has become one of music’s all-time most important voices. Def Jam, impressed with Roc-A-Fella’s early independent success, agreed to sign a joint venture with the young imprint on one condition: They needed seven albums from Jay. The skinny kid from Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects intended to drop just one album - a musical I was here statement - before partnering with a major label and falling back into a comfy executive role, becoming a vessel to launch hopeful Roc-A-Fella acts like Memphis Bleek and Christión into orbit.īut the industry had different plans.

5.If Jay-Z had his way back in 1996, this list would be too brief to warrant compiling. 3 for a fourth week straight with “DAMN.” DJ Khaled, whose “Grateful” was No. 2.Īlso this week, Kendrick Lamar holds at No. (Those streams include Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon and most other major digital outlets, with a notable exception: Spotify.) All told, “4:44” had the equivalent of 262,000 album sales in its second week, more than triple that of its closest competitor, “Issa Album” (Epic) by the rapper 21 Savage of Atlanta, whose 77,000 equivalents landed him at No. 1 with ease, with 174,000 copies sold as a full album and 122 million streams in the United States, according to Nielsen. Yet “4:44” - released by another of Jay-Z’s companies, Roc Nation - shot to No. 1, but without its first-week momentum, an opening at the top looked like a long shot. When “4:44” was released widely last week, it joined the race for No. Last week, it seemed pretty likely that the rapper-mogul would make a soft landing on the Billboard album chart with his latest release, “4:44.” In its first week out, “4:44” was streaming only on Tidal, Jay-Z’s own digital service, and the company withheld data from Nielsen, and thus from chart consideration.
