![]() ![]() Jay was always vocal about his strained relationship with his father, Agnes Reeves. Instead the song served as another classic Jay and 'Ye collaboration-further cementing their relationship as one of hip-hop's premier duos. ![]() After this record dropped, the Roc didn't rise from the ashes (Freeway? Foxy? Teairra Mari? LOL!). In the long run, Jay's verse didn't have its intended effect. There were a lot of unanswered questions floating around at the time but the main one was, who was rolling with Dame and who was rolling with Jay?Įveryone was patiently waiting on a statement from Jigga, and he broke his silence and returned to the mic to spit one of his best verses ever on the remix to Kanye's single “Diamonds.” The defiant verse made it clear that Jay was the Roc (“How could you falter?/When you're the Rock of Gibraltar”) and the roster was standing by him. It's 2005: Jay is still “retired,” Damon Dash has been unceremoniously ousted from the Roc, there's a whole stable of Roc-A-Fella artists whose future is uncertain, and Kanye West is the label's breakout star. Producer: Kanye West, Jon Brion, Devo Springsteen He’s got more bangers than just about anybody, but we took the time to narrow down the 100 best Jay-Z songs. On every new LP or densely allusive guest verse, you get a peek behind the curtain at a life that took him from the Marcy Projects and a risky stint as a street hustler to a life of arena tours, huge business ventures, and a marriage with Beyoncé. 2…Hard Knock Life, that moved millions of units and put Jiggaman on a perch that he has scarcely budged from in the two decades since.įrom the career-defining The Blueprint to the premature farewell of The Black Album, and from the epic Kanye West collab project Watch The Throne to his first Album of the Year nod from the Grammys for 2017’s boldly personal 4:44, Jay-Z has become hip-hop’s premier album artist. “ Reasonable Doubt was a classic, should’ve went triple,” but it didn’t–instead, it was his third album, 1998’s Vol. Jay didn’t release his first album until he was 26, an age by which many rappers are already washed up. His first recorded appearance, a split second cameo on mentor Jaz’s 1989 novelty “Hawaiian Sophie,” wasn’t exactly an auspicious debut on the level of Nas’ “Live at the Barbecue” verse. Shawn Corey Carter’s greatness wasn’t always a foregone conclusion, though. He outlived his closest peer, The Notorious B.I.G., and then proceeded to outwit and outlast every other rapper who went platinum in the 1990s. Jay-Z knows that in hip-hop, he’s in a category of his own–he has to go outside his own profession to find any comparison to his success, longevity, and technical proficiency. He calls himself the new Sinatra, rap’s Grateful Dead, and the Mike Jordan of recordin’. ![]()
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