Ironically, the album titled the turning point in the career of then 30-year-old Jay Z.  The Blueprint laid out the direction in which his already legend would become legendary.  The symbolic and iconic masterpiece was a defining moment in the genius of music.  The Blueprint, executively produced by Shawn “Jay Z” Carter, Damon Dash, and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, oozes Roc-A-Fella epicness since September 11, 2001 until now.  The album also holds a sadden memory that day, the day of the 9/11 attacks that the world will never forget.  In Hip Hop, the album was the beginning of the end of a trilogy that will go down in the history books of greatest of all time.  The all-in-blue memento was perfectly written and stories were perfectly told.  Producing handles by some of the greats: Kanye West, Just Blaze, Trackmaster, Timbaland, Bink, and Eminem, who also lended a hand as the album’s solo guest contributor on one of the hardest tracks, “Renegade.”  The beat hits so hard as the vocals ring off in your ears and Jigga and Eminem’s bars flow so fluently together.

After hitting you so hard once it would only be appropriate that Jigga came through for the ladies on “Girls, Girls, Girls.”  On the track, Jay Z gets around the globe showing love to every type of woman there is.  He gives us tears with “Song Cry,” behind a hot melody and a brilliant storyline; “They say you can’t turn a bad girl good, but once a good girl’s gone bad, she’s gone forever…” The meaning runs deep, the feeling is real, and the the tone is raw in expression.  “Never Change” forever holds an authenticity that can never be denied, “I’ll never change, this is Jay all day…”

“The Takeover” is timeless and was done effortless in response to the famous beef at that moment in time; “Ask Nas, he don’t want it with Hov, nooo!”  Jay made the statement of all with “The Ruler’s Back” and shows there is no love with “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)”, later performed with Mary J. Blige.  “U Don’t Know” reigns as the greatest track on The Blueprint, “U don’t know what you do…”  “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” is the album’s anthem, “I can’t leave rap alone, the game needs me…”  The Blueprint is truly a classic, all 13 tracks included plus two bonus tracks, “Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise) and “Girls, Girls, Girls (Remix)”  To Hip Hop this spells legendary and the best Hov album in history; not to mention his very own closing remark in the thank you’s:

“To This Whole Fake Bulls**t Industry, Thanx 4 being so Fake and Keeping me on my Toes!!! I Love Ya’ll Holla Back!”

-Jay Z

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The post The Chronicles of Jay Z: Marking the 15th Anniversary of ‘The Blueprint’ appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

I think it’s safe to say that DJ Khaled is winning right now! The DJ and motivational Snapchat sensation, who has a Apple Music partnership, took to his Instagram to announce his latest venture, a management deal with Hov and Roc Nation!

“Meet my manager. His name is Jay Z,” Khaled said. “Jigga. Hov!!! Special cloth alert! The blessings coming in have been overwhelming. So much blessings I needed the right team to help me embrace it right. And when I say embrace I mean brand partnership. When two special cloth brands come together history gets made.”

In the WSHH exclusive clip, Jay Z even spits a few bars. Does this mean that we could see a DJ Khaled and Hov music collab in the future? We’ll just have to wait and see!

Welcome @DJKhaled to the @RocNation family! #RocNation #WeTheBest pic.twitter.com/wNZx6b62E0

— Roc Nation (@RocNation) February 29, 2016

Allow me to reintroduce myself!!!! Meet my manager. His name is Jay Z. Jigga. Hov!!! Special cloth alert! The blessings coming in have been overwhelming. So much blessings I needed the right team to help me embrace it right. And when I say embrace I mean brand partnership. When two special cloth brands come together history gets made. I’d like to thank fan luv for walking with me thru the journey of more success. They don’t want us to win!!!! So what we gonna do is win more. When I say we, I’m talking fan luv! I’m talking my brother Lenny S! Always seen my vision !!I’m talking Chaka!! I’m talking JIGGA NATION!!!!! I’m up to something. I will never stop!!! I will not lose JIGGA VOICE!!! Ride with me thru the journey of more success. God is the greatest! Bless up. #WeTheBest ?#JAYZ ?#Rocnation @wethebestmusic JUS KNOW IM WORKING ON NEW MUSIC !! ???

A video posted by DJ KHALED (@djkhaled) on Feb 29, 2016 at 9:45am PST

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Jay Z did his B-Sides concert in NYC over the weekend and it came with some surprises. One of those surprises was HOV’s freestyle in which he shares how he really feels on the music industry. Spotify,Youtube, and Google. The freestyle has been reversed and placed in high definition form titled “Stream of Conscious.” We’re used to conscious minded efforts from Kanye West, and now it’s Hova getting on board in a different form. The freestyle ends with the line “Politics As Usual,” as it leads into that classic track. Check out the video below and let us know what you think.

Follow @robertbackwards

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Original art by Julia Schur, (aging this photo).

For some time now, Jay Z has been rap’s most involved elder statesman. He’s been a made man since the late ’90s, and for our genre, that’s an eternity ago. Jay keeps putting out music, but once he passed the torch and completed the trilogy that began with his most highly acclaimed record (and got married), he became an old timer. Jay has certainly come to carry himself in such a way too, always giving off a stately, polished, much-too-rich-to-be-here type of presence that surpasses even the most cocksure moments of his career’s earlier eras. With this status of hip-hop tenure, it’s easy to begin to slip, which Jay undoubtedly has. But every so often, a more passionate, inspired Hova comes back and reminds everyone just why it is he’s one of hip-hop’s the world’s most powerful men, and one of music’s most respected artists. Here are Jay Z’s best verses since gaining Old Man Hov status. (Roughly, we’re drawing from everything 2010 and onward.)

10. “Heaven,” Verse 2, Magna Carta Holy Grail

Jay sounds particularly reinvigorated here. From the exasperated way he opens and delivers that clever little line about “baggage” at heaven’s gates, to the quick adoption of Chief Keef‘s flow, to that inspired image of the angel wings on his Lambourghini, Hov’s dancing all over the place in the best way possible. Also, relating religion’s dividing powers to his Maybach’s partition is just quintessential Jay Z as a philosopher / millionaire.

9. “The Devil Is A Lie,” Mastermind

After what most felt was an overall sluggish performance on Magna Carta, “The Devil Is A Lie” was what convinced many that Hov still had the fire in him, whether or not it was doused in a little D’usse (which gets a pretty terrible reference here). Jay’s nimble flow at the verse’s opening and his cocky energy throughout are what make his spot on Ross’s record special. Well, that and when he puts White Jesus in his crock pot, calling the accepted image out as bullshit, and adds soda to make Jesus (who is of course, Jay here) into his truer, blacker self.

8. “Mr. Nice Watch,” Cole World: The Sideline Story

This verse was widely overlooked, and even called “phoned in,” likely because of the seemingly repetitive nature of the first few lines. Jay does rhyme “band” with “band” and “wound up” with “wind up,” but the way he puts a new meaning on each repetition, and builds the complex punches around the theme of watches and time is pretty damn masterful. He goes on to, with quicker pacing, pull the same trick again, saying he’ll “Put the front on the back of the ‘Bach like a boss / So I’m fronting on niggas when I’m backing off.” Stunting at its finest.

7. “New Day,” Watch The Throne

The entirety of this verse’s strength comes from its second half. When Jay moves past the relatively uninteresting “Paparazzi sucks” warning to his future child, he begins to speak with true substance. Setting himself up with a great line about finding his path at 26 (which is the age he got his first record credit) and wanting to start his son out at 13, Jay gives commanding advice about speaking with conviction before showing some true vulnerability as his mind wanders to a possible split between him and the child’s mother. The last line really lets the doubt soak through, as Jay promises to never repeat his deadbeat dad’s ways. “Never repeat ’em…never repeat ’em,” he echoes, showing just how close Jay is worried he might be to his father.

6. “No Church In The Wild,” Verse 1, Watch The Throne

To properly open Watch The Throne in epic fashion, Jay bombards with vivid, dramatic images. “Lies on the lips of a priest” might have more distinct detail and tangibility than the entirety of Jay’s raps on the rest of the album. It’s moments like that that show the man still has a love for language somewhere inside him. Next, Hov quotes one of Plato’s most interesting questions: “Is Pious pious cause God loves pious?” The question is ultimately asking what humans truly bow to: the opinion of themselves or of gods, and further, who should interpret the word of god? Considering the album’s goliath nature, fewer questions could be more relevant.

5. “Glory,” Verse 2

There have been so few occasions throughout Jay Z’s career where he really wore his heart on his sleeve, but this song, and this verse in particular, might be the best and most bare example. Opening up with a line about his own subpar father, Jay pulls in that same doubt that we saw on “New Day,” but moves on to the more immediate concerns of being a (famous) father that that hypothetical on WTT could never reach, like spoiling Blue. The verse grows even more personal as Jay reveals that Bey miscarried on their first try for a child. It’s not a particularly innovative or slick line, but the joy in his voice when he says “nah baby, you magic!” is undeniably powerful and, most of all, human. Additionally, Hov closes out with those sweet lines about Blue being the child of Destiny, and while it’s a good punchline, it’s even better knowing that he really earned them by taking us through the troubling road to this glory.

You’re a child of destiny
You’re the child of my destiny
You’re my child with the child from Destiny’s Child

4. “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” (Remix)

While it was largely overshadowed by Kendrick‘s show-stopping third verse, Jay let off a pretty dope verse to cement his cosign of K.Dot as, already, one of the greats of his time. Jay’s a little slow getting started, but he does exude a solid distillation of that above-it-all Jay Z cool, as he feigns frustration with gossip and wind pockets: “Up in the clouds, me and my spouse…Turbulence, shit, I almost spilled my drink.” When he speeds up to a more rapid-fire flow, his writing gets denser. The “million dollar baby” punchline is great, but it leads to possibly the best one-off line of this entire era for Jay: “Sittin’ next to Hillary smelling like dank.” Jay Z tells truths (or at least plausible lies) that not only could no other rapper pull off, but few could even dream something that good.

3. “Shiny Suit Theory,” Pre-Act II

Much like that destiny’s child line from “Glory,” one of the best moments on Jay’s “Shiny Suit Theory” feature is a play with homophones and homonyms. Kicking off the theme of the “insanity” of how far Jay’s come from his humble beginning, he contrasts his time “warrin’ with undercovers” to landing on “covers with Warren Buffet.” It’s “warrin’ to Warren.” Jay Z’s genius has always been delivering wisdom and wit with slogan-like slickness. Jay only makes you work a little bit to understand him, and is always sure to make that work well worth it. By the time we reach the verse’s end and Jay Z is wedging the picture of his inexplicable success into a larger, societal frame, we truly understand the “insanity” theme. “Since when did black men become kings,” he asks. Well, those who see the truth and future are often pegged as crazy.

2. “Oceans,” Verse 1, Magna Carta Holy Grail

Right off the bat, Jay is making distinct use of a powerful pallet: white and (vs) black. He still smells like the dope he left behind, and, because of the white echoed in his robe and boat, he still looks like it too. Hov then jumps from one past that can’t be forgotten (his) to the grander past that’s also hard to ignore as we stand with him on his yacht: “the oil spill that BP ain’t clean up.” Few lines in Jay’s career have been darker or sneered harder than that one. Another great example of Jay’s gift for slogans comes soon after: “The only Christopher we acknowledge is Wallace.” Wrapped up in that one small moment is an entire movement of reclaiming America as black culture and black culture as American, complete with the recasting of heroes and villains. Next, Jay continues to wield his palette wisely, contrasting his black card with the white cotton of Hermés. Both black and white are found in wealth here; we see how similar opposites can be, and how close the distance between “old” and “new” money (touched on later in the album) can feel.

It’s hard to believe that the same rapper who spits that terrible Ocean’s 11 line (twice!) is capable of producing such thought provoking material for the same verse, but we’ve known Jay’s complex for some time now.

1. “We Made It” (Remix)

There is  something about pressure of diss records that often bring out the lyrical best in them. “We Made It” is certainly a lot more complex than just being a warning to Drake, though. Even when Jay fires his real “shots” at Aubrey, he is light to medium teasing at best, calling him “Mrs. Drizzy,” before turning Drake’s (and many others’) complaints about Magna Carta on their head the way only a business–man could. Jay confronts the storied issue of what do street rappers write about once they’re rich and safe? by facing it head-on. He’s just rapping about his life in that moment, he argues. Further, in fact, he taunts, “Silly me rappin’ bout shit that I really bought,” as if going by any other model would be ridiculous. That’s the way a good Jay verse makes you feel–as if any other pick for the GOAT would be ridiculous. To paraphrase: you could have been anywhere else in the world right now, but you’re there with him.

Jay exhibits another great moment of condensing in the verse’s opening, as he wipes aside all previous shackles-to-jewelery punchlines with ease, painting the transition with refreshing crispness. The brevity of his motion–from slave ship to jeweler’s–somehow makes it all the more triumphant. From the very start, it’s a victory lap. Jay puts himself “onstage after 12 Years A Slave” with an Oscar-like bottle of champagne before going one step further, inserting himself in biblical times with an amazing stretch of lines. “Showed up to the last supper in some brand new J’s” might be the only line in Jay’s recent catalogue that can touch the Hillary line mentioned earlier.”You’re blind baby, blind to the fact of who you are, maybe,” stings with unbelievable precision considering how vague the actual wording and target are. Regardless of bearing in the real world, of which he often has tons, it remains that Jay Z is just on another level when it comes to saying the most piercing thing with the fewest words.

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With the release of his newest album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay Z managed to yet again please listeners and earn himself his 13th No. 1 hit on the Billboard charts. Somewhere along the way he decided that he no longer needs the hyphen in his name. The rapper has wasted no time making the change and is officially referred to as JAY Z  on his website and iTunes page.

Billboard editor, Joe Levy leaked the grammatical change to the Twitter masses yesterday night.

Breaking: Jay Z has dropped the hyphen from his name, according to his label. I am not kidding. (Wish I was.) Copy editors: take note.

— Joe Levy (@RealJoeLevy) July 18, 2013

The change has been taking quick roots across the world wide web since Levy’s announcement. Throughout the progression of his career, Jay Z has embodied numerous aliases for himself. Whether it’s been Hov or Hova or S.Dot, Jay has frequently toyed with his name.

This isn’t big news, but it will be interesting to see if Jay‘s name change will be taken more or less seriously than Mos Def‘s. Yasiin Bey still hasn’t quite caught on yet.

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Game 5 between the Spurs and the Heat was all the talk for Sunday night – until halftime. Jay-Z, who recently teamed up with Samsung in a deal reportedly worth millions, took over the night with a simple 3-minute commercial.

The video (which can be viewed below) shows Jay in the studio with Timbaland, Pharrell, Swizz Beat and Rick Rubin, with plently of Samsung product integration all around them. But the strange thing is that the “next big thing” is not a new Samsung phone, but a new Jay-Z album. “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” the rapper’s fifteenth studio LP, will be released July 4 through a limited release for Galaxy users.

The album will be given out free to the first million people who download an official Samsung Galaxy app, which will be available June 24 through the album’s website here. These fans will gain access to the album prior to its release date to the general public, which will arrive 72 hours later.

According to the WSJ, Samsung bought each album at $5 a piece, however there has yet to be confirmation on whether or not those sales would count towards Jay’s first week soundscan numbers. If they do count, that essentially means Hov would score a platinum plaque week 1.

Check out an official statement for the album below.

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