Word: jay
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Jay-Z's final album is a typically magniloquent send-off, with production by the Neptunes and Eminem, among others. The hooks on tracks like What More Can I Say blare like processionals for a hip-hop king, and Jay-Z raps over them with effortless self-aggrandizing. He has kept listeners engaged all these years not with his humility but with a relaxed Brooklyn baritone that makes him sound a bit like a ghetto Sinatra (callous but with enviable style). His upbringing has also made fans a little more sympathetic about his avarice. Born Shawn Carter, Jay-Z grew...
...owns considerably more than the penthouse. Roc-A-Fella Records, the label Jay-Z co-founded in 1995 when no other label would sign him, has expanded into a diversified corporation, selling everything from clothes to vodka. Under the day-to-day management of his friend Damon Dash, Roc-A-Fella posts estimated annual revenues of $1 billion. "Why should he make records?" asks Russell Simmons, architect of Def Jam, the original hip-hop conglomerate. "Records are a distraction. He could be missing an opportunity to get really rich. I haven't produced a record for 15 years." Simmons...
This is a remarkable statement, no less so because it's true. Hip-hop has oozed into so many areas of culture that rapping is now like a mail-room job at CAA, the first rung on a potentially prodigious financial ladder. In this light, Jay-Z's retirement is the ultimate act of conspicuous consumption. He has climbed high enough that he can afford to stop...
While a retiring rapper seems like a particularly absurd joke ("Most rappers get up at 5 p.m. anyway," laughs Jay-Z) and the marketing tie-ins surrounding The Black Album would make George Lucas blush, Jay-Z is taking his departing moment seriously, in part because it was brought on by a serious moment. In 1999 he was arrested for stabbing Lance Rivera, a rival producer, in a crowded New York City nightclub. Jay-Z's friends claim that Rivera was bootlegging some of the rapper's music. All Jay-Z will say is that "it was the dumbest thing...
Last summer Jay-Z took the first vacation of his life. "Went to the south of France, Sardinia, Corsica, Monte Carlo. For a month I didn't do anything," he says. "We saw some things. We lived life. And that pretty much sealed the retirement." The use of we is as close as Jay-Z comes to talking about his relationship with Beyonce, but he says he sees a future in which he has kids ("the biggest thing missing in my life"), runs Roc-A-Fella and maybe even takes over as president of his corporate music parent, Universal Records...