Jay-Z

Six Rare Early Jay-Z Appearances

Earlier this week, the archival department over at Rap Radar unearthed some 1989 public access TV-looking footage of a pre-fame Jay-Z freestyling with his mentor The Jaz over an instrumental of E.P.M.D.'s chunk 'o funk "So What Cha Sayin'." Ever one for a sense of occasion, Jigga decided to sport a ... More >>

Point: Jay-Z Sold Out Brooklyn

Counterpoint: Jay-Z Saved Brooklyn According to Jay-Z's own mythology, at some point in the '90s he used an apartment at 560 State Street in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood as a stash spot for his drug-peddling paraphernalia. Last week, the rapper played eight back-to-back shows two-and-a-half ... More >>

Meek Mill - 40/40 Club - 9/26/2012

Meek Mill 40/40 Club Wednesday, September 26 Better Than: Schlepping up to Inwood for a random Jay-Z sighting. Jay-Z is hip-hop's reigning master of synergy. Just days before he christens the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with a string of sold-out concerts, the rapper hosted the release of basketbal ... More >>

Pazz & Jop 2011: Nick Minichino On Funkmaster Flex's ALL-CAPS Premiere Of Jay-Z And Kanye West's "Otis"

To supplement this year's Pazz & Jop launch, Sound of the City asked a few critics to expand on the reasonings behind their voting. This is from Nick Minichino, who voted specifically for Funkmaster Flex's premiere of Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Otis" this summer. ​That was the driving force of i ... More >>

Radio Hits One: VH1 Takes On The '00s Pop Canon

VH1 spent last week counting down what the channel, and its panel of celebrities and "experts," consider The 100 Greatest Songs of The '00s. They certainly haven't been the first to assemble such a list—Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and every blog under the sun had their say about two years ago, ... More >>

DJ Premier & Kendra Morris

100 & Single: Considering The Album-Chart Class Of 9/11, 10 Years Later

​A king of hip-hop, retaking the penthouse of the album chart with his latest blockbuster. A middle-of-the-road rock band, reviving a turn-of-the-'90s "alternative" sound that's now squarely mainstream. A sexagenarian legend who debuted in the '60s and who still captures Boomers' hearts and ... More >>

Live: Jay-Z Talks Decoded and Ol' Dirty Bastard at the New York Public Library With Cornel West and Paul Holdengräber

Cornel West, Jay-Z, Paul Holdengräber. Photo by Jori Klein.​Jay-Z In Conversation With Cornel West and Paul Holdengräber New York Public Library Monday, November 15 Usually, says tonight's distinguished moderator, NYPL director Paul Holdengräber, "my goal at the library is to make the li ... More >>

The Top Seven Most Surprising Revelations From Jay-Z's Roundtable Conversation With Warren Buffett and Steve Forbes

​Recently Forbes staged an event a long time coming, bringing Jay-Z and the billionaire Warren Buffett to the same table as part of something they're calling the Forbes 400 Summit. People have been speculating about this meeting for years now--some quite prophetically--and as interlocutor, the ... More >>

Live: Jay-Z And Eminem Bring Out Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Swizz Beatz, And Chris Martin (??!!) At Yankee Stadium

This actually happened Jay-Z/Eminem Yankee Stadium Monday, September 13 Better than: The shows in Detroit, I have to think. Sorry, Detroit. So let's start somewhere in the middle: Chris Martin! The dude from Coldplay! Seriously! Out he shuffles roughly halfway through Jay-Z's n ... More >>

Watch Jay-Z Perform at Nike's World Basketball Party at Radio City Music Hall Last Night

Here we have the third leg of the big-tent rap tripod that set up over an unwitting New York City last night, joining Rihanna's sold-out MSG stand and Kanye West's secret Rosewood performance in the annals of shows you really wanted to get into but couldn't. Preceding Shawn Carter was the 2010 USA ... More >>

Damon Dash Resurrected

Cast out of Jay-Z's kingdom, a notorious hip-hop mogul takes a kinder, gentler, hipper approach to reinvention

A People's History of Summer Jam 2010

Drake debuts, Trey Songz gyrates, and DJ Khaled wins at the hip-hop event of the year

Morning Links

​Herewith, your talking points for this Friday... • If you're trying to fly out of Europe, think again: "60 percent of European flights were not operating and delays will continue into Saturday," according to European traffic control agency Eurocontrol, which sounds like an early '90s elect ... More >>

Jay-Z, Fleeing Subpoenas and David Paterson, Bows Out of Aqueduct Gambling Venture

​It all seemed so glamorous back in the fall, when Jay-Z signed on for a single-digits stake in the development conglomerate AEG, just weeks before the company successfully pitched his buddy David Paterson and was awarded a billion dollar-plus contract to run slot machines out at the Aqueduct ... More >>

On Sade and the Virtues of Scarcity

Sade, hiding. Photo courtesy ThinkTank Marketing.​This week's album charts were topped by Sade's Soldier Of Love, the smoky soul singer's sixth full-length and first since 2000's Lovers Rock. Soldier accomplished the rarer-than-ever feat of going gold in its first week of release, selling 502, ... More >>

Jay-Z's Midlife Crisis Is Over

Which doesn't make The Blueprint 3 a classic. But we'll take it. For now.

Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Tracklist Looks Like Mad Libs

​ The Blueprint 3 tracklist is out, and the stats are in: four solo Jay songs, at least one of which is nearly guaranteed to be Jay going not so hard (unless "Venus vs. Mars" is about something entirely different than we think it is), and another one of which is "D.O.A." There is indeed a son ... More >>

Photos: Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Ne-Yo, DJ AM at the Izod Center

THE TAKEOVER

Time for Summer Jam

Live: The Roots' TV Taping

Jay-Z Diss Track Enlivens Bullshit NBA Playoff Feud

Status Ain't Hood Podcast 24

Jay-Z vs. Jay-Z

Suddenly vulnerable hip-hop superstars go to war with themselves

The Inescapable Allure of Grown-Man Shit

Ghostface Killah on the perils of your fans—or your co-stars—not wanting you to grow up

Live: Jay-Z Makes Up with Lil Wayne, Ordains Jadakiss

Status Ain't Hood Podcast 12

Status Ain't Hood Podcast 7

Things I Learned Watching American Gangster

UGK's Underground Kingz

Overdue Southern comfort

Jay-Z: Rap's Joe Lieberman

Hova's Slight Return

Jay-Z's aura finally outshines his art—what a drag it is getting old

Diddy's Little Helpers

Why hip-hop ghostwriting is an art now, and an actually respectable one

Jay-Z is Afraid to Fight

Jay-Z's Kingdom Come: It's Official

The New Jay-Z Album: A Bad Idea?

Old R&B New Again Again

Three young divas make soul waters unscary for middle-aged fans

R&B for the Thugs, From the Ladies, With Help From the South

Rap-Metal in the Winter Sky, and 99 Dead Problems Go By

Jay-Z in a Bottle

Table 50, a kinder, gentler bottle-service club; KEXP invades New York

The Last Hustle

Jay-Z Leaves Hip-Hop With Something to Remember Him By—The Black Album, With Matching Sneakers

It Was Rewritten

Nas-postles Remix and Retool the Prodigal Son of Hip-Hop

Listings

Bhangra Over Bombs Over Baghdad

Rhythmic Dialogue Where Duplicity Exists

Letters

Kings of New York

The Passing of the Mic

Jay-Z's Hard-Knock Week

Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Week

MEA CULPA!

Records We Overlooked That Made a Splash in 1998