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Jay-Z: 50 Greatest Songs

Is Jay-Z the greatest rapper of all time? “I’ve got this Elvis thing going on right here,” Jay-Z told Rolling Stone in 2007 shortly before tying the King’s record of 10 albums debuting at Number One (and well before notching four more in the following decade). Indeed, Jay-Z’s feats are many: 21 Grammys, toasted by Barack Obama as the first rapper in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and represented in countless rappers’ Top Fives (Kendrick Lamar, T.I., J. Cole among them; and Lil Wayne has a Jay-Z verse tattooed on his leg). He looms large in skills, impact, business acumen: the cool yet distant image of a former street hustler, a flow that’s both technically advanced and pop savvy and an unimaginable wealth that Forbes and other publications struggle to calculate. Yet even among the musical largess that comprises Jay, some of his classic songs rise above others. Here’s our list of his 50 greatest.

“Roc Boys (And the Winner Is…)” (2007)

Jay Z Roc Boys and the Winner Is

“Roc Boys (And the Winner Is…)” reaches back to the dazzling, horn-blasting sound of iconic Jay-Z hits like “U Don’t Know.” Gleaming brass lines ricochet around the track – produced by P. Diddy and the Hitmen – and Jay-Z raps about amassing vast wealth: “Let ya hair down baby, I just hit a score/Pick any place on the planet, pick a shore/Take what the Forbes figure, then figure more.” One group that got to share the wealth was the Brooklyn soul outfit the Menahan Street Band, who were sampled for the track. “A record being sampled is like a needle in the haystack, and the chances of it being a hit song is even slimmer, so it was a real fortunate thing that happened to us,” the group’s guitarist and leader   Thomas Brenneck  told Life and Times . “Then being credited as a songwriter on a Jay-Z song does a lot for the songwriters. Up until then our records sold 5,000-10,000 copies; [2007 LP]  American Gangster sold a million copies. It was a real boost in self-esteem.”

Jay-Z and Linkin Park, “Numb/Encore” (2004)

Jay Z Linkin Park Numb Encore

Jay-Z was hip-hop’s Grateful Dead – despite having “retired,” he couldn’t bear saying goodbye to the game. In 2003, Jay and Linkin Park capitalized off the burgeoning MP3 “mashup” culture with an MTV special, followed by the six-song EP Collision Course . What could have been an empty cash grab ended up feeling sincere. Lone single “Numb/Encore” especially captured everyone’s delight over how well their music actually fit together. “I’m not trying to be you, you’re not trying to be. There’s fusion and just whatever happens, happens. I love that,” Jay said to Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington on MTV . Since Bennington’s death in July, Jay has performed “Numb/Encore” several times in tribute, turning the single into a bittersweet farewell.

Jay-Z and T.I. feat. Lil Wayne, Kanye West, “Swagga Like Us”

T.I. Jay-Z Lil Wayne

“It was a song that Kanye and I had done first; me featuring Kanye,” T.I. told MTV . “An idea had presented itself: ‘What if we included these people and made it an event record?’ I was like, ‘That’s a very ambitious idea, but a lovely one.'” In 2008, “Swagga Like Us” represented a summit of rappers – T.I., Lil Wayne and Kanye West – all in the middle of remarkable stretches of hit-making, joining forces with Jay-Z, who had helped to clear the way for their pop crossover success with his own hot streak in the late Nineties and early 2000s. Each MC takes turns rapping as a blithe sample of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” cycles through the background. Jay-Z sounds at ease, unruffled by the star power of his collaborators and casually dismissive of everyone else. “Can’t teach you my swag,” he raps. “You can pay for school, but you can’t buy class.”

“Ain’t No Nigga” feat. Foxy Brown (1996)

Jay Z Foxy Brown

“Ain’t No Nigga” might be the most shamelessly commercial track on Jay-Z’s debut,  Reasonable Doubt , and it’s naturally the one that elevated him from Brooklyn thug poet to future pop dominance. Initially released as the B-side to “Dead Presidents,” it found a national audience when the rapper’s Roc-A-Fella team switched distribution from Freeze/Priority Records to Def Jam, and the latter selected it as a single for Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor soundtrack. Jay’s verses are nice – “They say sex is a weapon/So when I shoot, meet your death in less than eight seconds,” he brags. But he meets his match thanks to a riposte from a then-teenaged Foxy Brown.

“Empire State of Mind” feat. Alicia Keys (2009)

Jay-Z Alicia Keys Empire State of Mind

By at least one measure, “Empire State of Mind” is the biggest record of Jay-Z’s career: He had never topped the Hot 100 as a lead artist until he released this collaboration with Alicia Keys, the final Number One hit of the 2000s. “Jay hit me up like, ‘I feel like I have this record that’s going to be the anthem of New York,'” Keys, another Big Apple native, explained to MTV . “He’s like, ‘The piano, the way the style [is], the whole flow, and it couldn’t be the anthem of New York without you.'” “Empire State of Mind” loops the dramatic, golden opening motif from a towering slice of orchestral soul – in this case, the Moments’ “Love on a Two-Way Street” – to great effect. Jay-Z touts his credentials as the “new Sinatra,” while Keys aims for universal uplift: “These streets will make you feel brand new/Big lights will inspire you.”

“Snoopy Track” feat. Juvenile (1999)

Jay-Z

Jay-Z was in his imperial phase when New York rap was doing the same, but as a true student of history, he looked the country over for inspiration, appearing on No Limit releases like the I Got the Hook-Up soundtrack and inviting underground regional heroes UGK and a newly minted multi-platinum superstar from New Orleans named Juvenile to appear on 1999’s Vol. 3 . Though Juvenile only appears on the song’s hook, his sonorous Southern drawl framed one of Timbaland’s most unsettling beats with a menacing melody. As searing synths tore a hole in the stratosphere, Jay rapped with the impenetrable, brutal confidence of a world – from New York to Houston to Miami to Atlanta – which folded before him, violence and success its only currency.

“Politics As Usual” (1996)

Jay-Z

Reasonable Doubt is suffused with a mixture of regret and pride at Jay-Z’s street exploits. The two conflicting emotions can be difficult to parse, which may have led some early critics to dismiss it as an above-average gangsta rap record upon its initial release. Produced by Ski Beatz, who flips a Stylistics sample and lends the track a smooth, melancholy tone, “Politics As Usual” epitomizes this quandary: Jay rhymes how he’s “cursing the very God that brought this grief to be,” but then shifts and says, “I’m trying to feel mink, nigga.” “I remember even the reviews, when it first came out, ‘This is gangsta, hustler persona.’ I knew they didn’t understand what was being said in the music,” he told the BBC for its 2008 documentary series Classic Albums. While inner turmoil about the hustler’s life has been a hallmark of hip-hop since the days of Ice-T, Jay’s use of language elevates songs like “Politics As Usual,” and justifies Barry Michael Cooper’s assessment of him as “the Proust of the projects.”

“Song Cry” (2002)

Jay-Z

The Just Blaze-produced “Song Cry” features a particularly wrenching performance from Jay. Offset by an interpolation from Bobby Glenn’s 1976 ballad “Sounds Like a Love Song,” he embarks on a world-weary lament, looking harshly at the effects a demanding tour schedule and roving eye are having on his relationships. The lyrics, which represent what Jay-Z called a “gumbo of a lot of my relationships” in a 2005 GQ interview , are “about a guy who isn’t fully ready to commit, but the girl he’s with, he really loves her, you know? And he wants to be with her. So what happens is, she’s sick of putting up with his stuff and she finally moves on into another relationship and he’s crushed. But even after all that, his pride won’t allow him to cry. … So you’ve gotta make the song cry.”

Kanye West feat. Jay-Z, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)” (2005)

Kanye West Jay Z

Kanye West acknowledged how impressed he was this Jay-Z verse on 2007’s “Big Brother”: “On that ‘Diamonds’ remix I swore I spazzed/Then my big brother came through and kicked my ass.” The friendship and rivalry between Jay-Z and his former producer has been the source of lots of great music since the two began working together at the dawn of the new millennium. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)” remains one of their pluckiest collaborations, an audacious merger of old-school pomp – the in-your-face sample of Shirley Bassey’s over-the-top James Bond theme – and a sleek synth-pop sound that hints at West’s upcoming pivot into dance music. West raps with focus and dexterity here before passing the baton to Jay-Z for a scorching verse, the origin of one of his most famous lines: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”

Scarface feat. Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, “Guess Who’s Back” (2002)

Jay Z Beanie Sigel

Jay-Z told Cornel West that rappers like Scarface inspired his own honest, biographical approach. When the Houston rap legend reintroduced himself on 2002’s The Fix as an aging gangster with stories to tell, Jay-Z helped welcome the transition – in his autobiography, Scarface said the two MCs would “talk for hours.” With a glittering soul loop by Kanye West, “Guess Who’s Back” was summit between the East Coast, the South and the up-and-coming Midwest. During the making, Scarface was struck by how Jay laid down his enthused, vivid verse in one take. “I hate going in the studio with him,” he said to HipHopDX , “because he’s done with his shit before I sit down.”

“Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” (2001)

Jay Z

One of Jay’s biggest early commercial hits – it peaked at Number Eight on the Billboard Hot 100 – this Kanye West-produced track features an exquisitely used sample from the Jackson 5’s soaring “I Want You Back.” “I grew up in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection,” Jay told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2010. “So Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all those sounds and souls – Motown etc., etc. – filled the house. So I was very familiar with the song when Kanye brought me the sample. It was just such an interesting and fresh take on it that I immediately was drawn to it.”

“Come and Get Me” (1999)

Jay Z

Jay spits barely concealed threats in a dangerous game of reality-rap chicken, jumping into a casually fluent flow that feels as if it were coasting across the top of each kick drum on a surfboard. Timbaland provided the ambitious beat: Low-slung funk punctuated by wah-wah guitar for its first minute; a cinematic break narrated by ringing church bells and an uneasy flute; and then a robo-digi-funk groove.

Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Gotta Have It” (2011)

Jay Z Kanye West

If Watch the Throne was Jay and Kanye’s attempt at tag-team rap, “Gotta Have It” is assuredly its crowning achievement. Produced by West and the Neptunes, the cut is built around three chopped-up James Brown samples and finds the rappers completing each other’s sentences, butting in mid-flow if necessary. Like many tracks on the album, catchphrases and meme-worthy utterances obscure a more profound, deeper sentiment. “I wish I could give you this feeling/I’m playing on a million,” Jay professes to the less fortunate, a shipwreck survivor rowing to shore knowing the lifeboat couldn’t contain everyone. “Gotta Have It,” like the entire album, may read as straight exuberance. But as Jay noted to   the New York Times ‘ T magazine , “It’s a lot of pain and a lot of hurt and a lot of things going on beyond, beneath that.”

“Who You Wit II” (1997)

Jay Z

Roc-A-Fella co-founder Dame Dash was working on a soundtrack to a new comedy called Sprung when he asked producer David “Ski Beatz” Willis for original material. The next day, the producer began to flip smooth jazz group the Jeff Lorber Fusion’s 1981 song “Night Love” (featuring a young Kenny G) into “Who You Wit.” With an extra verse, re-released as “Who You Wit II,” it would become one of the most cherished, punchline-heavy songs on Jay’s second album  In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 . “‘Who You Wit’ leaves a legacy of true lyricism at its purest form,” Ski tells Rolling Stone . “People gravitated to that song because it was so witty.” “The arrangement had a lot of space and was somewhat minimalistic, [making] it easier for them to manipulate [the sample] the way they did,” Lorber adds. “It was a little shocking to hear my song in a new context, but i think it has aged well and is still fun to listen to.”

Jay-Z and Beanie Sigal feat. Scarface, “This Can’t Be Life” (2000)

Jay Z beanie sigal this can't be life

An early Roc-A-Fella beat from Kanye West relied on disembodied vocal samples crying out from soul music history, while Jay – then a notoriously callous rapper – delivers a touching reflection on the painful origins for his show business pursuits and passions. It’s no slight to him to suggest Beanie Sigel and Scarface steal the show. The song’s a powerful rendering of the nuances and complexities of pain, Beanie showing it through a lens of exhaustion (“I’m tired of trying to hide my pain behind the syrups and pills”) and Scarface managing to envelop love, spirituality, community and loss on the head of a pin.

Beyoncé feat Jay-Z, “Crazy in Love” (2003)

Beyonce Jay Z

The night before Beyoncé turned in her 2003 debut Dangerously in Love , she asked Jay-Z for a favor. He heard the hit potential in “Crazy in Love” immediately; how those Chi-Lites horns and producer Rich Harrison’s go-go percussion could catapult the Destiny’s Child singer to solo stardom. “He played the song and went crazy,” Young Guru, Jay’s personal engineer, said to MTV News . “Crazy in Love” would be the breakout moment for Bey, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks – though a big asset ended up being the chemistry between the then-rumored couple. She oozes sex appeal, while he raps about chinchilla furs in a futile effort to keep his cool.

Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek feat. Freeway, “1-900-Hustler” (1999)

Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel Jay-Z

The Bink!-produced “1-900-Hustler” was a high-concept rap record featuring four present-and-future Roc-A-Fella rappers sharing advice on how to hustle – an idea borrowed from Texas rap heros the Convicts’ 1991 record “1-900-Dial-A-Crook.” Wed to a fiery sample of Ten Wheel Drive’s “Ain’t Gonna Happen” (the rappers all apparently rapped over the part that Bink! meant for the chorus), the song’s highlights are many: Jay charges $800 for a phone call asking for advice; Beanie Sigel sends a hustler to the “bullshit-ass elevator music” for talking about illegal work over the phone; Freeway spits his advice before concluding the best lesson would be just to rob the caller himself.

“Threat” (2003)

Jay-Z threat

Jay-Z wanted his retirement album to show that he was leaving hip-hop in fighting shape. So all pressure was on new collaborator 9th Wonder of hot underground group Little Brother, who came on board to produce “Threat” after he tried booking DJ Premier. “Now you can argue this,” 9th told Complex , “but what he was trying to tell me in so many words was, ‘I want you to be like what Premo was to me on my other albums.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, you’re going too far now, Jay.'” But 9th pushed himself, as he flipped an R. Kelly sample, added piano stabs and cued silences to punctuate Hov’s winding, heart-stopping wordplay.

“A Week Ago” feat. Too $hort (1998)

jay z yacht song

Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life exploded with splashy radio anthems, becoming Jay-Z’s only album to be certified five times platinum. “A Week Ago,” however, was the album’s throwback to the rueful street tales that he built his reputation on. Bay Area trailblazer Too $hort wasn’t supposed to be the only regional rap legend on the track – Jay asked Pimp C to appear, according to his UGK partner Bun B. The session fell through, but Jay linked up with UGK a year later for the far more famous “Big Pimpin’.” 

“Dear Summer” (2005)

Jay Z Memphis Bleek

Jay-Z’s retirement was brief and full of wonderful interruptions like “Dear Summer,” which appeared on Memphis Bleek’s 534 album but did not include a verse from Bleek himself. Producer Just Blaze sets aside his trademark stadium-leveling sound to make a cooled-out beat based around a barely-tweaked excerpt from jazz-funker Weldon Irvine’s “Morning Sunrise.” Jay-Z originally debuted the lyrics to “Dear Summer” – a love song about the rapper’s propensity for warm-weather hits – during a visit to New York’s Hot 97. “The record is so crazy we was going to put it out the day after he went to radio, but Jay was like, ‘Nah, chill,'” Just Blaze told MTV . “Doing that record was kinda like old times. It was nobody in the room but me, Guru [the engineer] and Jay. … Obviously, the artist bug is still there,” Just Blaze added. “It’s not like he needs to do the intro to Bleek’s album. When you’re an artist, you’re always gonna be an artist even if that’s not your main job anymore.”

The Jaz feat. Jay-Z, “The Originators” (1990)

Jaz Jay Z the originators

At the age of 21, Jay-Z was mostly paying dues, whether sleeping on Big Daddy Kane’s tour bus for a chance to spit a verse or two in concert, or slinging drugs in Brooklyn and Trenton, New Jersey. Luckily, his Marcy Projects friend and mentor Jonathan “The Jaz” Burks enjoyed a label deal with EMI. “When Jaz scooped me up from the projects, I was young,” he told Blaze magazine in 1998. “I was just his man, and he brought me along for the whole ride.” Jay-Z landed cameos on both of the Jaz’s albums, including the kitschy minor hit “Hawaiian Sophie.” But it’s the 1990 single “The Originators,” which found the two joining forces on an Afrocentric-themed fast-rap fusillade that hints at Jay-Z’s future mastery of a cool, dexterous verbal style. Over a funky James Brown loop, he works a stutter-step flow to punch out rhymes like “Stop fakin ya makin’ it, son/I’m breakin’ a-breakin’ a-breakin’ ya tongue/Don’t get caught perpetratin’ the cool ones.”

Jay-Z and Kanye West, “New Day” (2011)

Jay Z Kanye West

For Watch the Throne , an album teeming with unabashed bravado, “New Day” is jarring in its sentimentality. Over an Auto-Tuned sample of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and a laid-back beat by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, both Jay and Kanye address their unborn children. For both men, it was entirely speculative: Jay wouldn’t become a father to Blue Ivy until the following year, but his pain and promise to never abandon his child, as his own father did when he was 11, finds him uncharacteristically vulnerable. “Promise to never leave him, even if his mama tweakin’/’Cause my dad left me and I promise to never repeat him/Never repeat him/Never repeat him.” Parenting, Jay later told GQ , is one of life’s great challenges that material wealth could never resolve. “Providing – that’s not love,” Jay said. “Being there – that’s more important. We see that with all these rich socialites. They’re crying out for attention; they’re hurting for love.”

“So Ghetto” (1999)

Jay Z So Ghetto

By the time of 1999’s “So Ghetto,” producer DJ Premier had shifted from the epicenter of hip-hop’s sonic “now” to a respected traditionalist. At this point a formula was cleanly in place, but relative to the R&B-echoing pop sound of Timbaland elsewhere on this album, Premier’s sound vibrated with hard-edged urgency. Over a guitar loop from Ennio Morricone’s Le Ruffian soundtrack, punctuated with otherworldly sound effects from kaiju monster King Ghidorah, Jay’s toughness is expressed not through aggression – his performance has that unbothered reserve that sold the best material of his peak – but in the brash lyrical details: “We tote guns to the Grammys, pop bottles on the White House lawn.”

Memphis Bleek feat. Jay-Z, Twista, Missy Elliott, “Is That Your Chick (The Lost Verses)” (1999)

Memphis Bleek Jay Z is that your chick

Jay-Z, Twista and Memphis Bleek show off their technical game, spitting dexterous bars with acrobatic precision over a Timbaland production that’s like a musical obstacle course. The song’s fiery effect comes directly from how effortlessly Jay and Bleek perform these intricate feats, a reflection of the song’s subject matter – casual indifference as a response to the grand emotional drama unspooling before the song’s unnamed target. Twista darts through the air with an exuberance and fluency that mainly conveys love for recognizing the full mastery of human potential. Missy’s taunting chorus is the only break from the testosterone-driven subliminal battle Jay waged across this larger-than-life canvas.

“Can’t Knock the Hustle” feat. Mary J. Blige (1996)

Jay Z Mary J Blige

Much as the Notorious B.I.G. had done with 1994’s  Ready to Die , Jay-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt marked a marriage between the kind of dense lyricism that appealed to rap heads and the kind of bubbly, bouncy beats that appealed to club-goers. No other track underlined that ethos quite like opening track “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” The song finds him both rebuking neighborhood snitches watching Jay-Z the street hustler and anticipating critics of Jay-Z the rapper’s fomenting dominance. “I’m leanin’ on any nigga intervening with the sound of my money machine,” he blasts in a flurry of interior rhyme logic. Meanwhile, Mary J. Blige underlines Jay’s words with a chorus inspired by Meli’sa Morgan’s 1985 hit “Fool’s Paradise.” “I heard what Jay-Z was speaking about, which is not judging the way people go and make their money,” Blige explained in the 2008 BBC documentary Classic Albums: Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt . “It was something I could relate to because the culture we lived in was about survival, and never disrespecting other people’s hustle.”

Jermaine Dupri feat. Jay-Z, “Money Ain’t a Thang” (1998)

jay z jermaine dupri

A line from Jay’s “Can’t Knock the Hustle” gets new life thanks to producer Jermaine Dupri and a funky Steve Arrington sample. Jay dives into to the breezy, free-wheeling brags of the bling era in bars like “Said she loved my necklace, started relaxin’/Now, that’s what the fuck I call a chain reaction” – a punchline that Remy Ma re-used for an even bigger hit, Terror Squad’s Number One single “Lean Back.” “I was going to the airport to pick him up, and on my way to the airport I was listening to Reasonable Doubt.  On [“Can’t Knock the Hustle”] he says, ‘Deep in the south kicking up top game,’ recalled the Atlanta-based Dupri  to Complex . “It just seemed like that line jumped out to me. As soon as I heard that I was like, We’re using that. So he got off the plane, he got in the car. And when I got to the studio at my house, I had the beat up already.”

“Imaginary Player” (1997)

Jay-Z

Bad Boy in-house producer Daven “Prestige” Vanderpool inverts “Imaginary Playmates,” R&B duo Rene and Angela’s 1981 hit about fantasy lovers, into this track comparing Jay’s stacks to jealous rappers with “little to no dough/Sell a bunch of records and you still owe dough.” All of Jay’s trademarks at the time – the humor, the braggadocio, the quiet cockiness – are embodied on In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 ‘s slickest track. “Y’all want to take my flow, and run with it,” he rhymes. “That’s cool, I was the first one with it.” “The original ‘Imaginary Playmates’ tag/hook and beat fit perfectly into their version beat-wise,” Rene and Angela’s Angela Winbush tells Rolling Stone. “ A 13-year-old once asked me why was I singing [“Imaginary Player”] in my show and wrote so many lyrics to Jay-Z’s song! I just laughed and said go ask your mother or grandmomma.” Ma$e claimed to be the target of Jay’s vicious broadsides, but whoever it’s about, this is Exhibit A whenever you hear Jay’s flow described as “effortless.”

“Can I Get A…” feat. Amil, Ja Rule (1998)

Jay Z Ja Rule Amil Can I Get A

A huge moment in many ways: A breakout moment for producer Irv Gotti, whose Murder Inc. label would dominate rap for the next few years; a successful tie-in with Rush Hour , the Number One movie in the country for two weeks; and even Jay-Z’s first trip into the Top 20 for one of his own songs. However, it wasn’t always intended for him. “‘Can I Get A…'” was my record,” Ja Rule told Rolling Stone in 2001. “Jay wanted to use the record, he used the record, and it was profitable and prosperous for both of us.” In turn, the song launched Ja Rule’s career and the video helped cement his image. “The video director [Steve Carr], he’s a funny guy, a great guy. He’s the one who actually told me to take my shirt off,” Ja Rule told Complex . “It was the last scene of the video, and he was like, ‘I see you in the back doing pushups and shit. So you wanna take your shirt off for this last scene and run one like that?’ … He had a vision. He’d seen it early.”

“Friend or Foe” (1996)

jay z friend or foe

“Getting on a Primo beat at the time Jay-Z got on a Primo beat for the first time was the equivalent of driving a Ferrari or something like that,” Elizabeth Mendez Berry told Zach O’Malley Greenburg for the 2011 biography Empire State of Mind . “It was a moment of arriving.” Premier may have not dominated the Billboard charts like Puff Daddy and Dr. Dre, but he was the most respected among NYC hip-hop producers, and his three contributions to Reasonable Doubt were a sign of Jay’s rising stock. Unlike “D’Evils” and its mordant tale of a friend’s betrayal, Premier’s beat for “Friend or Foe” was buoyant with Blaxploitation funk, and Jay-Z responded with a short, off-the-cuff verse that sounds strikingly humorous by comparison. “I need those keys/And a promise that you’ll never/No matter the weather/Ever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever come around here no mo’,” he ends with a smirk as he repurposes a Chris Tucker line from the 1995 classic Friday .

“D’Evils” (1996)

Jay Z D'evils

Unlike some of the other tracks on Reasonable Doubt , “D’Evils” is clearly a work of fiction, one both inspired by Snoop Dogg’s 1994 gem “Murder Was the Case” – Snoop’s “Dear God, I wonder can you save me” forms part of producer DJ Premier’s scratched-out chorus – as well as the Mafioso trend overtaking NYC rap. Over three increasingly bleak verses, Jay observes coldly how “none of my friends speak,” then kidnaps the baby mother of his closest pal. He seduces her with sex and money and then, after extracting enough information to betray his homie, kills her in cold blood. “My soul is possessed by D’Evils in the form of diamonds and Lexuses,” he raps. The horrorcore vibes of “D’Evils” serves as metaphor for Jay’s years spent hustling in the streets. In Decoded , he writes, “The first defense of a lot of people who take the criminal route is that they had no choice, which is almost true: Most of us had choices, but the choices were bleak.” He adds, “This reflects the way I actually thought: I ignored my God-given ability, never believing that someone from where I came from could make it out.”

“Money, Cash, Hoes” feat. DMX (1999)

JAY-Z Money Cash Hoes DMX

Kaseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean was just the teenage nephew of the founders of Ruff Ryders Entertainment when he got the chance to work on chart-topping albums by DMX in 1998. By the end of the year, artists outside the label wanted Swizz’s simplistic but hard-hitting beats. And his first collaboration with Jay-Z was the result of the young producer just kidding around with the beat’s outlandish riff. “The song started as a joke with me sliding my hand across a keyboard, just bugging,” Swizz told Complex . But Jay took the beat seriously enough to elevate the track with suave wordplay like “Only wife of mines is a life of crime/And since life’s a bitch in miniskirts and big chest/How can I not flirt with death?” 

“Dirt Off Your Shoulder” (2004)

JAY-Z Dirt Off Your Shoulder

By this time, producer’s Timbaland’s rhythms were still so avant-garde, he jokingly asked Jay-Z in Fade to Black whether the rapper was “confused” by his beats. What came out of their Black Album sessions, though, was immediate enough to resonate for years. “I think when Tim played the track early on, it had like a brushing sound on it. I started messing with lyrics about brushing off haters,” Jay said in The Hits Collection Vol. 1 liner notes. An actual radio takeover played out in the song’s video. In reality, not only did “Dirt” become one of his biggest hits, but it even had Barack Obama following his lead during the 2008 Democratic primaries.

“Can I Live” (1996)

Jay-Z

In 1996, it seemed as if Isaac Hayes’ early Seventies masterworks were everywhere, whether powering the Platinum soundtrack to the movie Dead Presidents , or informing much of the electronic-oriented hip-hop experiments known as “trip-hop.” On “Can I Live,” Hayes’ sensual reimagining of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Look of Love” serves as an elegiac counterpoint for Jay-Z’s anguished comparisons of a hustler’s lust to a drug addict’s paranoia. “The pain of a drug addict is visible,” wrote Jay when he explained the “Can I Live” lyrics in his book Decoded. “The hustler has armor – money, ambition – that makes his pain less visible, less ‘quick to see.’ But just like a drug addict’s ‘brain on drugs’ the hustler’s brain is similarly fried, preparing for inevitable rainy days (precipitation), planning takeovers, stacking and climbing.” As the penultimate Brooklyn hustler, Jay’s stress over street politics manifests in fears of getting “toasted” by rivals, catching “amnesia” over the crimes he has committed and meditating “like a Buddhist” akin to Dr. Dre on N.W.A.’s “Express Yourself.” “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant,” he raps. It culminates in one of the most haunting choruses of the rapper’s career: “Can I Live?”

Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Otis” (2011)

JAY Z, Kanye West Otis

“Otis” began as a direct challenge from Kanye West’s longtime collaborator No I.D, according to XXL . “I get the co-productions, but how you gon’ do an album and you don’t go to the machine and do one beat by yourself?” the producer told West upon arriving at New York’s Mercer Hotel where he and Jay had set up a makeshift studio to record Watch the Throne . West bolted to his MPC, began chopping up a slow refrain from Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” and flipped an iconic soul song into something stabbing, brash and gruff. The song introduced the world to the term “luxury rap” and Jay opened it by declaring, “I invented swag.” But for a onetime hustler who’d run with a broke crew who “wanted to pretend we weren’t,” flaunting his wealth was always a more nuanced proposition. “It’s not, like, ‘We’re here! We’re balling harder than everybody,'” Jay told GQ  of his and Kanye’s lyrics on “Otis” “When you’re accustomed to wealth, you don’t show it, right?” he’d later explain to Vanity Fair . “That’s why the white kids in school could wear bummy sneakers; it’s almost like, Don’t show wealth – that’s crass.”

“I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)” (2000)

JAY-Z I Just Wanna Love U Give It 2 Me

“I [had] ‘Parking Lot [Pimpin’]’ up and running [as the first single],” Jay-Z told MTV in 2000. “I was all ready to go with it but the next day I made this song and it was just the vibe. The vibe of everyone in the studio … the immediate reaction, people were singing it by the time the second hook came on.” With Pharrell operating as a Curtis Mayfield for a hip-hop era of radio dominance, “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)” was a brighter, cheerier Jay than the rapper was previously known for – and became his biggest pop hit to that point. The Neptunes production had a slick bounce, its scraping percussion, skipping bass and trademark guitar accents a spare, understated canvas for Jay’s in-the-moment lyrics of partying in a carefree context, singing along to Carl Thomas at karaoke and indulging in a new world of appreciation for designer labels – all helping usher in a new kind of jet-setting lifestyle music.

“4:44” (2017)

Jay Z 4:44

In the wake of Jay-Z being called out for his infidelities on wife Beyoncé’s instant-classic Lemonade , he approached them head-on with the title track to his 13th album. “I went and made a piece of music that would box him in to telling that story,” album producer No I.D told Rolling Stone . “I remember [Jay-Z] just looking at me, sighing. ‘O.K., I’m going home.'” Exhibiting a weakness and vulnerability long lurking but never revealed in such a deliberate fashion, Jay rapped of his misdeeds, “And if my children knew/I don’t even know what I would do/If they ain’t look at me the same/I would probably die with all the shame.” He’d awakened at 4:44 a.m. to write the song. “It’s the title track because it’s such a powerful song, and I just believe one of the best songs I’ve ever written,” he told iHeartRadio .

“Intro/A Million and One Questions/Rhyme No More” (1997)

Jay-Z

Two years before his debut album, Jay linked up with DJ Premier on Big Daddy Kane’s 1994 posse cut “Show and Prove” and ever since, the Gang Starr producer has created some of the rapper’s most indelible tracks. Primo speeds up Aaliyah’s “One in a Million” and R&B singer Latimore’s infectious piano groove on “Let Me Go” to anchor Jay’s ruminations on intrusiveness (“A Million and One Questions”) before flipping the song into the mellow arrogance of “Rhyme No More.” “Back then, to edit it we had to splice the tape and put it together,” Premier told Complex of the medley in 2011. “You mess up on a punch and you have to re-cut it. On Pro Tools, you just press undo. But Jay-Z trusts me. He’ll just lay his vocals, and says, ‘Do the Premier thing.'”

“Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)” (2001)

Jay Z Heart of the City

“Diamond D, Pete Rock, RZA and Primo were doing [soul samples] since a long time ago – we just helped bring that style back,” Kanye West told Vibe in 2004 . His beat for “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)” uses a chunk of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s plush 1974 funk ballad “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City,” which Jay dialogues with when he snaps, “Where’s the love?” after the hook. The beat came from a pivotal period for the still-emerging West: The beat CD he gave Jay for The Blueprint not only had this, but the beat for the album’s “Never Change,’ the beat that became the basis for State Property’s “Got Nowhere” and the beat that became Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name.'” Jay’s process for laying down the song’s acid-tipped verses was simple and quick: “In the studio, the ‘Fiesta (Remix)’ video came on TV,” West recalls, “and Jay walked into the booth, started recording, finished the entire song all the way to the outro, and came back in the studio. The video was still on.”

“Takeover” (2001)

Jay Z Takeover

Jay-Z’s third year headlining Hot 97’s annual Summer Jam would have made headlines anyway: Besides Missy Elliott and Beanie Sigel performing snippets of signature tracks, Jay brought out none other than Michael Jackson to say hi. However the preview of “Takeover,” a diss track aimed at the hardcore New York rap crew Mobb Deep and Jay’s longtime foil Nas, had the longest-lasting effects in the hip-hop world. Jay’s poison-pen takedown hovers over Kanye West’s sinister beat, which uses a stew of samples from the Doors, KRS-One and David Bowie to create an ominous atmosphere for Jay’s meticulous dissection of why, exactly, he’s the superior man to Nas in particular. Jay even goes so far as to claim that his samples of Nas on two previous works weren’t done as an homage; but as a corrective: “So yeah I sampled your voice, you was usin’ it wrong/You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song,” The Jay/Nas beef became one of rap’s most famous, resulting in more back-and-forth potshots (including Nas’ 2001 milestone “Ether”) until a 2005 concert at Continental Airlines Arena (then the home of the partially Jay-owned New Jersey Nets). While the show had been dubbed “I Declare War,” Jay had other intentions: “All that beef shit is done, we had our fun,” Jay told the crowd . “Let’s get this money.” He later brought Nas on stage, where the two embraced and performed “Dead Presidents” – one of the Nas-sampling songs Jay referenced in 2001.

Freeway feat. Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, “What We Do” (2003)

Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel Freeway

“Jay-Z was so impressed with [Freeway],” wrote Rolling Stone of the rapper in 2003, “he told listeners of Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 radio show in New York that he’d match money with anyone willing to make a wager on Freeway’s rapping skills should they be foolish enough to want to battle him. Of course, nobody was.” Freeway joined the Roc-A-Fella roster after fellow Philadelphian Beanie Sigel. For his breakout single, Freeway’s new boss set him up for success. The rapper’s original plan was for Jay to repeat “Keep goin’,” as heard about 30 seconds into “What We Do.” Instead he got more than he bargained for, as Hov paused his pool game to record his endorsement of a verse. “He actually wasn’t finished. He dapped me up and said, ‘I’mma come back and finish the rest of the verse later,'” Freeway said to HipHopSince1987 .

Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Niggas in Paris” (2011)

Jay-Z & Kanye West Ni**as In Paris

On its face, Watch the Throne ‘s most ubiquitous stadium anthem, and the song Jay-Z and Kanye performed a record setting 12 times in a row during a single concert, is pure camp. Call it the platinum rappers’ brass-balled toast to over-the-top opulence like, say, camping out for six days at the five-star Le Merurice hotel in Paris to create it. But amid West’s goofy “hah?!,” and all the Audemars and the Margiela jackets, this Top 10 single is really a deep sigh of relief. “If you escaped what I’ve escaped/You’d be in Paris getting fucked up too,” Jay intones with palpable glee. “It’s like, ‘I’m shocked that we’re here.’ Still being amazed, still not being jaded,” Jay would tell GQ of the inspiration behind the Hitboy-produced banger. “I’ve known so many people that didn’t make it. Most people can look at a picture of the kids they grew up with and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah – Adam went away to Harvard.’ This is a whole different conversation.”

“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” (1998)

Jay Z Hard Knock Life Ghetto Anthem

For Jay-Z’s first single to break into the Top 15 of the pop charts, producer Mark “The 45 King” famously flipped an indelible tune from the Annie  Broadway soundtrack – he copped the record from the Salvation Army for a quarter after seeing an ad on TV. He gave a dubplate to Kid Capri, who was DJing Puff Daddy’s No Way Out Tour. “Fans were running up saying, ‘How did you get the Annie song behind the drums?’ It was mostly white people coming up to me,” Capri told Grantland . “I knew from the reaction I was getting that it was really working.” Eventually Jay asked too, and thus began this monster hit, a vivid, melancholy look at his rise from “from lukewarm to hot; sleepin’ on futons and cots/to king size.” “I wasn’t worried about the clash between the hard lyrics and the image of redheaded Annie,” Jay wrote in Decoded . “Instead, I found the mirror between the two stories – that Annie’s story was mine, and mine was hers, and the song was the place where our experiences weren’t contradictions, just different dimensions of the same reality.”

“Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator ’99)” feat. Big Jaz (1999)

JAY-Z - Jigga What, Jigga Who

After Jay-Z became a star, he invited his old friend and mentor the Jaz – now credited as Big Jaz – to appear on a sequel to their 1990 rapidfire flow clinic “The Originator.” “[W]e was using that fast style that everybody seems to be using now,” Jay said in the liner notes to Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life . Where Jay and Jaz practiced their fast flows over relaxed, jazzy production in 1990, their 1998 reunion took place on a spacey, futuristic track by Timbaland. Timbo had already changed the sound of R&B with Aaliyah and backed Missy Elliott’s playful, creative hip-hop, but this was a pivotal moment in his career, the first time an elite MC had a speedy flow to match the busy ticking of his hi-hat patterns.

“Public Service Announcement” (2003)

Jay Z Public Service Announcement

Jay-Z had to actually stop The Black Album from being pressed to include this anthemic, last-minute reintroduction. Throughout, he answers to a journalist who had just sat through an album listening session, only to ask how he could pair a Che Guevara T-shirt with a chain. “Che’s failures were bloody and his contradictions frustrating,” Jay-Z writes in Decoded . “But to have contradictions – especially when you’re fighting for your life – is human, and to wear the Che shirt and the platinum and diamonds together is honest.” Setting the stage is producer Just Blaze, with ominous keys and a spoken-word intro (“Fellow Americans…”) fit for a revolutionary about to perform at Madison Square Garden.

“Brooklyn’s Finest” feat. The Notorious B.I.G. (1996)

Jay Z Brooklyns Finest

“Brooklyn’s Finest” remains a magnificent document of two Brooklyn greats together in peak form. Jay-Z and the Notorious B.I.G. were developing a new group with Biggie’s girlfriend Charli Baltimore called the Commission. “For the next year, we weren’t only talking about plans for the Commission,” Jay-Z told XXL in 1998. “He had so many plans for [ Life After Death ], with touring and relocating and moving around.” Instead, Biggie was murdered in March of 1997. This song sounds like the opening chapter in a partnership that never reached fruition. Kicking off with Wayne “Pain in Da Ass” Hirschorn’s interpolation of Al Pacino’s over-the-top performance in Carlito’s Way , Biggie and Jay trade ever more ridiculous crime boasts: Jay drops the immortal line, “Peep the style and the way the cops sweat us,” while Biggie claims he’ll “shoot your daughter in the calf muscle.” The song’s most famous moment comes when Biggie tries to answer 2Pac’s spurious “Hit ‘Em Up” claims of sleeping with his estranged wife Faith Evans: “If Fay have twins, she’d probably have two Pacs/Get it, 2Pac’s?”

“U Don’t Know” (2001)

Jay Z U Don't Know

Just Blaze’s pairing of room-shaking bass and a sped-up sample of funk pioneer Bobby Byrd’s 1970 scorcher “I’m Not to Blame” act as a momentous springboard for Jay’s boasting about his various business successes – his drug-slinging days in “Hell, where you are welcome to sell,” and the growth of his Roc-A-Fella empire into one that can “smarten up, open the market up” into unexpected avenues like clothing. Jay thunders “Motherfucker, I – will – not – lose” as the music drops out before the fourth verse. It’s a stunning moment where his confidence explodes into triumphant catharsis.

“99 Problems” (2004)

Jay Z 99 Problems

Jay-Z paid Rick Rubin a visit to “recapture that feeling I had when I was a kid,” as he explained in documentary Fade to Black . What came out of that session did have vintage heavy metal riffery reminiscent of Rubin’s Eighties work with LL Cool J and Beastie Boys, but lyrically it was a blistering, modern-day critique, taking aim at those who demonize him as a black man and rapper. The hook, borrowed from Ice-T and Brother Marquis of 2 Live Crew – “I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one” – was bait for talking heads, since verses play with the other meanings of the word. “[E]ven as I was recording it, I knew someone, somewhere would say ‘Aha, there he goes talking about them hoes and bitches again!'” Jay writes in Decoded . The song became iconic enough that Barack Obama brought it to the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner: In light of Jay and Bey’s controversial visit to Cuba, he said, “I’ve got 99 problems and now Jay-Z is one,” to hearty laughs.

“Big Pimpin'” feat. UGK (2000)

JAY-Z Big Pimpin' UGK

When the Mariah Carey-stamped single “Things That U Do” failed to pick up on the charts in its first two months as a single off Jay’s Vol. 3 , he and Dame Dash quickly moved to the Timbaland-produced exotica of “Big Pimpin'” – which successfully sold the world’s second-oldest profession as a jet-setting, champagne-popping lifestyle. And an exuberant one at that, from the beat’s flamboyant Best of Bellydance From Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey origins (Timbaland was later sued for his sample of Baligh Hamdi’s “Khusara Khusara”) to Hype Williams’ lavish video, shot at Carnival in Trindad (and, when Pimp C skipped that shoot, a similar-looking location stateside). Inspired by the Pretty Tony character from 1973 film The Mack , Jay’s verse is him at his unaffected, bulletproof coldest. For UGK’s Bun B and Pimp C, it was their first moment to show out in such a high profile spot. Bun’s bars (“step up your vocab”) proved as memorable as Jay’s, and Pimp C’s Big Gipp-inspired flow offered a raw, uncut coda.

“Dead Presidents II” (1996)

Jay Z Dead Presidents II

Released in February 1996, the original “Dead Presidents” found Jay-Z twisting lyrics about fake thugs “scared to throw your toast,” and spouting claims about “representing infinity with presidencies,” all in a deftly loquacious style that bore the hallmarks of peak Mafioso rap. But when his debut  Reasonable Doubt dropped later that June, he offered two fresh verses that plumbed deeper subject matter. He alludes to the shooting of DeHaven Irby, a childhood friend who taught him the drug game (“On the uptown high block he got his side sprayed up”) and recalls how he dodged a few deadly shots of his own (“I had near brushes, not to mention, three shots close range”). He weaves notes on his baller superiority (“Roc-A-Fella, don’t get it corrected, this shit is perfected”) with biographical asides, making for a poignant and superior sequel. Producer Ski Beatz’ blend of Lonnie Liston Smith’s “A Garden of Peace” with Nas’ “The World Is Yours” laid the groundwork for future drama. “I just threw that sample in there to see if it worked because I liked Nas’ voice,” Ski told Complex in 2010. But when Nas turned down Jay’s offer to re-do the chorus – AZ appeared in the “Dead Presidents” video instead – it led to one of the greatest rivalries in hip-hop history.

“Where I’m From” (1997)

Jay Z Where I'm From

Producer Ron “Amen-Ra” Lawrence was record-hunting in 1996 when he found soul singer Yvonne Fair’s “Let Your Hair Down” and tried, as he tells Rolling Stone , “giving it a sinister soundtrack feel.” The track, which Diddy originally passed on, was still in rough form – no sound effects, no extra percussion. But when Jay-Z heard what would become “Where I’m From,” the rapper, inspired, immediately began recording his personal verses two bars at a time. “It gave me a vision to make the track sound more dramatic based on Jay’s flow,” Lawrence says.

The result is one of Jay’s most candid and intimate tracks; part memoir, part cultural and socioeconomic critique, part distillation of his surroundings both past and present. “He painted a grim picture about Marcy Projects,” Lawrence says. “It gave the listener a mental vision of what it was like for him growing up there in Brooklyn.”

From the blunt, unforgiving song’s opening line – “I’m from where the hammers rung /News cameras never come” – Jay describes a place where “life expectancy is so low, we making out wills at 18.” It’s the inverse of “Imaginary Player,” where decadent luxury takes a backseat to day-by-day survival. “Where I’m From” also boasts some of Jay’s most packed couplets: “Where how you get rid of guys who step out of line, your rep solidifies/ So tell me when I rap, you think I give a fuck who criticize?”

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Songbook: How Jay-Z Created The 'Blueprint' For Rap's Greatest Of All Time

From groundbreaking albums to star-studded collaborations, Jay-Z's discography has made the rap mogul one of the genre's biggest icons.

As Jay-Z declared in 2001's "Breathe Easy," few rappers stack up when it comes to his flow, consistency, stories, charisma, and trendsetting powers — and he's backed up his claims for three decades on.

The Brooklyn rapper has cranked out chart-topping hits and street anthems across classic albums like The Blueprint and The Black Album , and he's inspired generations of rappers to take on his pen-free approach to music. But long before becoming a hip-hop icon, the young Shawn Carter first honed his musical gifts by rapping over a boombox in his childhood home in Bed-Stuy's Marcy Projects.

Nicknamed "Jazzy" for his love of music, Jay-Z split his time between exploring his newfound passion and dealing crack cocaine as a teenager. After linking with childhood friend and then-mentor Jaz-O, he adopted the moniker "Jay-Z" in the late 1980s, and eventually captivated hip-hop fans on the posse cut "Show and Prove" from Big Daddy Kane 's 1994 album Daddy's Home . That moment led to the eventual release of his own single, 1995's "In My Lifetime," and the years that followed served as the coronation of one of rap's biggest stars.

After being rejected from major record labels, Jay linked with fellow New Yorkers Damon "Dame" Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke to establish Roc-A-Fella Records in 1996. He soon went from being an up-and-coming artist selling burned CDs out of his car to producing multi-platinum singles and No. 1 albums. 

His greatness has earned him 24 GRAMMYs to date — tied with Kanye West for the most of any rapper — and a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And with a billion-dollar business empire to match his acclaimed discography, Jay-Z has long been declared one of the greatest MCs ever. 

As he continues his rap reign, revisit some of Hov's most illustrious career moments, from memorable performances to groundbreaking album releases and legacy-defining accolades. 

Listen to GRAMMY.com's official Songbook: An Essential Guide To Jay-Z playlist on Spotify , Apple Music , Amazon Music , and Pandora . Playlist powered by GRAMMY U.

"Hawaiian Sophie" (1989)

A fresh-faced, hi-top faded Jay made one of his earliest appearances on wax with "Hawaiian Sophie." The 1989 record was a modest and playful hit by childhood friend Jaz-O, who let Jay contribute a few lines on the island-themed track.

Though Jay's presence was minor, he put a face to a relatively unknown name by popping up throughout the song's luau-style video. Years later, he gained the attention of legendary Brooklyn rapper Big Daddy Kane, who brought Jay on as a hype man before he broke out as a solo act and formed a more calculated, sharp-tongued lyrical style. 

Reasonable Doubt (1996)

Taking inspiration from classic films like The Godfather and Goodfellas , Jay-Z showcased his lyrical potency and storytelling ability on his critically acclaimed debut, Reasonable Doubt, in mafioso fashion. The album was the manifesto of a 26-year-old street hustler, who looked to shed the deadly perils of the drug underworld to bask in the caviar and champagne lifestyle.

He shifted from the colorful, bombastic rap style of his early career to a snappier and grounded delivery on "Coming of Age," and the Biggie Smalls -assisted "Brooklyn's Finest," while still offering a slice of mainstream appeal on "Ain't No N—" featuring Foxy Brown . Legendary producers DJ Premier ("Fried or Foe"), DJ Clark Kent ("Cashmere Thoughts"), and Ski ("Dead Presidents II") helped lay the canvas for Jay-Z to illustrate his past experiences and impending accolades and riches. 

The album was among his best releases in the '90s, and helped establish his foothold in the industry through the new millennium. While Reasonable Doubt didn't reach platinum status until six years after its 1996 release, the project elevated Jay's profile as an emerging MC with a penchant for vivid street tales and mainstream edge. 

Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (1998)

Jay-Z's third album is possibly the most impactful in his career. Not only did it notch his first GRAMMY (for Best Rap Album at the 1999 GRAMMYs), but it remains his best-selling album with more than 5 million copies sold. It also started an 11-album streak of No. 1 releases.

The project was a medley of pop-oriented singles such as "Can I Get A…" and club records like the piano-laced hit "Money, Cash, Hoes." It also offered street classics like "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)," which showcased his musical versatility and mainstream appeal. 

Aside from the Stevie J -produced "Ride Or Die," Jay veered away from the Bad Boy production style of Vol. 2's predecessor, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. He enlisted Ruff Ryders producer Swizz Beatz for "Coming of Age (Da Sequel)," and producers Timbaland , Jermaine Dupri , Irv Gotti , and Kid Capri were also tapped for the project, creating a lush palette of club bangers and records indicative of the shiny-suit era of late '90s hip-hop. 

THE ANTHEMS

"imaginary players" (1997).

If it wasn't for Hov, rappers may still be drinking beer over champagne, rocking silver charms over platinum, and driving Range Rover 4.0 SEs instead of 4.6 HSEs. Not only did Jay shift the motor and champagne industry with his second album, but he altered the rap game, too. And "Imaginary Players" was proof.

The In My Life, Vol. 1 cut was a collective side-eye to frauds masked as street hustlers, and signaled Jay-Z's early trendsetting powers. The song didn't graze the Billboard charts as high as singles "Who You Wit," "The City Is Mine" and "(Always Be My) Sunshine," but it grew into a street anthem and blueprint for the real go-getters to shine among the fakes. 

"Big Pimpin'" (1999)

For years, "Big Pimpin'" was the ultimate summer anthem. The single from Vol 3… Life and Times of S. Carter showcased Jay's ability to produce hit records with artists from other regions. It also laid the ground for future collaborations between Jay-Z and Timbaland, who went on to produce tracks like "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," "The Bounce," "Tom Ford," and others.

Music aside, the song's video is reflective of the flashy, big-budget era of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Shot during the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, the video's yacht views, sand-filled beaches, and cigar smoke complimented the song's tropical sound and inspired listeners to wrap themselves in linen garments, kick back and enjoy the Caribbean breeze. 

The Blueprint (2001)

Regarded as the best album in his catalog, 2001's The Blueprint encapsulated all of the elements that made Jay-Z a lyrical titan and fixture in music. Between the boundless braggadocio on "The Rules Back," the tales of chaotic romance on "Girls. Girls, Girls," and a snapshot of his uprising on "Blueprint ("Momma Loves Me"), the album captured it all.

While "The Takeover" sparked one of the era's most contentious rap beefs, and forced Queens rapper Nas to snap back with a poignant blow of his own in "Ether," the album was riddled with some of Jay's biggest records during the 2000s. Street anthems like "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" had rap fans of all ages spelling out the song's title, and soul-stirring album cuts like "Song Cry" had listeners barely holding onto their tears. 

The Black Album  (2003)

Jay 's eighth studio effort was pegged as the final one by the Brooklyn MC. And while he eventually returned for Kingdom Come three years later , 2003's The Black Album would've been the perfect end to an already historic rap career.

On "December 4th," Jay kicked off the album with a call back to his origins. "They say they never really miss you 'til you dead or you gone/ So on that note I'm leaving after this song/ See you ain't got to feel no way about Jay so long/ At least let me tell you why I'm this way, hold on." 

Jay goes on to outline his successes on "What More Can I Say," then incites fans to level up their sexy on "Change Clothes." Between experimental records like the DJ Quik-produced "Justify My Thug" and the soulful "Lucifer," The Black Album is also filled with stadium-rocking anthems. 

On "99 Problems," Jay raps over zingy guitar riffs for a bold track that's reminiscent of Run DMC and Aerosmith 's 1986 smash "Walk This Way." Both songs were produced by Rick Rubin , who provided the rock-induced, bare-bones beat for Hov to unleash on snarky law enforcers and uninformed rap critics. 

The Timbaland-produced "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" is a middle finger to the dream killers envious of others' success. The platinum-selling record even inspired Barack Obama to use a shoulder-brushing motion when running against then-rival Hillary Clinton during his 2008 Democratic nomination campaign. 

THE COLLABS

"numb/encore" (2004).

After dropping a live album with The Roots and releasing two critically panned collaborations with R. Kelly , Jay made a creative pivot with Collision Course (EP). The rapper teamed up with Linkin Park for a hip-rock project that was inspired by Danger Mouse 's The Grey Album , and mashed hits like "Jigga What, Jigga Who," "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," "Big Pimpin'" and with songs from Linkin Park's Meteora and Hybrid Theory releases.

The album received mixed reviews, but the project's lone single "Numb/Encore" won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 48th GRAMMY Awards and helped the EP land a No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200. 

"Empire State of Mind" (2009)

Fifteen years after Nas ' "N.Y. State of Mind," Jay made his own dedication to New York City with "Empire State of Mind." The record is an ode to the city that shaped him, and the millions of other natives who, like him, hustled in various boroughs to get by (and have a closet full of New York Yankees hats).

The Alicia Keys -assisted track touched the hearts of New Yorkers everywhere, including Harlem and Brooklyn native Lil Mama, who notoriously hopped on stage with Keys and Jay during their performance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The Blueprint 3 single took home two gramophones at the 53rd GRAMMY Awards for Best Rap-Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song. 

Watch the Throne  (2011)

After teaming up on classic songs like "Never Let Me Down" and "Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)," Jay and Kanye West came together for a full-length project in 2011. The two rap giants combined their musical genius for Watch the Throne , an explorative and enthralling body of work filled with genre-melding hits coated with top-tier production and memorable features.

Watch the Throne was an exercise in musical cohesion and set the bar for collab projects to follow, given the commercial success and critical reception it received upon its release. Jay served as the lyrical orator, while West was the sonic architect and more animated showman. 

Between glossy trap songs like "H.A.M." and "N—s In Paris, and the pop-extravagance of "Lift Off," Jay and Kanye tell fervent tales of their ghetto origins on "Murder To Excellence," visions of their children's lives on "New Day," and give listeners soul-stirring jams like "The Joy" and "Otis." Each track was nourished from the well of Jay and Kanye's artistry, and done without either rapper leaving the other to dry. 

"Holy Grail" (2013)

The same year Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake came together for the hit "Suit & Tie," the pair delivered another smash with "Holy Grail." The song's origins began in the sessions for Watch the Throne , but Hov feared it would get lost in the shuffle — so he decided to build 2013's Magna Carta… Holy Grail around the enthralling record.

An explosive track about the allure and destruction of fame, it became the lead single for MCHG , selling over 3 million copies and winning Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2014 GRAMMYs. A year after its release, Billboard placed the record at No. 25 on the publication's Top 100 Hot Rap Songs of all-time list. 

EVERYTHING IS LOVE (2018)

Prior to 2018, Jay-Z and his wife, Beyoncé , blessed fans with culture-shifting collaborations like "Crazy in Love," "03 Bonnie and Clyde," and "Drunk in Love." These songs prompted fans to call for a full-length project from the power duo, and after years of anticipation, the power couple delivered 2018's EVERYTHING IS LOVE .

The album came as a surprise to fans, with many jarred by the rumors surrounding Jay and Beyoncé's marriage following the release of Bey's searing 2016 project Lemonade (as well as Jay's honest response with 4:44 — more on that later). While the speculations and alleged drama continue to swirl online, the two stars came together for a nine-track album that gave listeners a behind-the-scenes look at life at the Carter residence. 

Announced in the middle of their second On The Run stadium tour, EVERYTHING IS LOVE celebrated the power of black love and family life while exploring unadulterated extravagance. Like their past collaborations, Beyoncé's soothing, high-powered vocals helped elevate Jay's bars and artistry. 

Together, they combined their collective powers for stories about rowdy tour stops and endless shopping sprees on "APES—" and "BOSS," and Beyoncé adorned the album with emotion-filled love ballads like "SUMMER." The couple even exchanged braggadocious rhymes about the strength of their union on "LOVEHAPPY," and the fun they have together outside the lines of celebrity on "HEARD ABOUT US" — proving they had not only weathered the storm, but came out stronger together.

4:44  (2017)

Arguably one of Jay's most complete and honest bodies of work, 4:44 is a vivid look at the artist's triumphs and failures as Shawn Carter the man. On the opening track "Kill Jay Z," he sheds his ego-fueled moniker to reveal his early upbringing in Bed-Stuy on "Marcy Me," the discovery of his mother's sexuality on "Smile" and the issues surrounding his marriage on the title track.

While the late-career album was largely viewed as a response to Beyoncé's Lemonade album,  4:44 also painted a portrait of Black America, unveiled the pathway to generational wealth on "The Story of O.J.," and the value of shared successes on "Family Feud" and "Legacy."  

The rapper veered from the commercial sound of Blueprint 3 , and the gumbo of trap and luxury-soaked beats on Magna Carta… Holy Grail , to deliver deeply personal messages over No I.D. 's grounded, sample-heavy production. 

The artist hasn't released another solo project since 4 :44 , but if it is in fact his last album, it's certainly a stellar way to close the door on a legendary music career. The 2017 release was praised by critics and garnered three nominations at the 60th GRAMMY Awards, including Song Of The Year and Album Of The Year. 

"GOD DID" (2022)

The GRAMMY-nominated song had plenty of star power thanks to John Legend , Lil Wayne , Rick Ross , Fridayy and producer DJ Khaled — but Jay-Z's verse tilted the hip-hop world on its axis.  

On "GOD DID," Jay spit one of the best verses in his catalog. " I be speaking to the souls of men/ Those of them willing to die for the existence that this cold world has chose for them/ Kicking snow off a frozen Timb (woo)/ Back and forth on this turnpike, really took a toll on them." The MC detailed his journey across state lines to live out his street dreams, the drama and misfortunes that followed his tracks, and how he leveraged his powers to become one of the first rappers to reach billionaire status.

He encapsulated it all within a four-minute verse, closing out the track touching on his legacy — and proclaiming that he is in fact one of rap's all-time greats. " I just got a million off a sync/ Without risking a million years tryna get it out the sink (woo)/ Hov big/ They said they don't know me internationally, n—s on the road did/ I see a lot of Hov in Giggs/ Me and Meek could never beef, I freed that n—a from a whole bid/ Hov did/ Next time we have a discussion who the GOAT, you donkeys know this."

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15 Must-Hear Albums In March 2024: Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Shakira & More

Photos: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; RICHARD THIGPEN ; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for WIRED; Owen Schatz; Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; KELLY CHRISTINE SUTTON;  Jason Squires/FilmMagic; JASON ARMOND / LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES ; KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY ; Araya Doheny/FilmMagic

15 Must-Hear Albums In March 2024: Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Shakira & More

From the debuts of Tyla and rapper Tierra Whack, to a new salvo from Kim Gordon, women dominate the list of releases for March. While it may be Women's History Month, there are a few major releases from male artists, including Justin Timberlake.

March is Women’s History Month, and women in music are more powerful than ever. 

The month begins with the comeback of several queens, starting with Kim Gordon’s The Collective and Ariana Grande ’s Eternal Sunshine . Later, country darling Kacey Musgraves will unveil Deeper Well , and Shakira will drop the empowering Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran . Long-awaited debuts by GRAMMY-winning singer Tyla and singer/bassist Blu DeTiger will also join the lineup, with their respective Tyla and All I Ever Want Is Everything . Wrapping up March on a high note, Beyoncé will drop her highly-anticipated Act II on the 29th.

Men will release music in March as well: Expect new releases by Justin Timberlake , Bleachers, the last record from pop-punk band Sum 41 , and (allegedly) Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign ’s Vultures 2 .

To make the most of this prolific time, GRAMMY.com compiled all the must-hear albums dropping March 2024.

Schoolboy Q - Blue Lips

Release date: March 1

On Feb. 1, Schoolboy Q’s website was updated with a mysterious countdown and a 37-second video. In it, the rapper finally unveiled the setlist and title of his much-awaited sixth studio album, Blue Lips , as well as its release date — March 1.

Blue Lips is Q’s first full record since 2019’s Crash Talk , although he had been teasing the album since 2020. Hopefully, it was worth the wait: Blue Lips holds 18 tracks and participations by Rico Nasty, Freddie Gibbs , and more. Q has also started a new vlog series on social media called "wHy not?," where he takes the viewers behind the scenes of making the album and previews snippets of the songs.

So far, the rapper shared tracks "Blueslides," "Back n Love" with Devin Malik, "Cooties" and "Love Birds" with Devin Malik and Lance Skiiwalker, as well as lead single "Yeern 101."

Bleachers - Bleachers

Release date: March 8

Fronted by 10-time GRAMMY winner and 2024 Producer Of The Year Jack Antonoff , rock band Bleachers will release its eponymous fourth studio album on March 8.

In a press release, Bleachers is described as Antonoff’s "distinctly New Jersey take on the bizarre sensory contradictions of modern life." The self-titled record will blend sadness and joy into "music for driving on the highway to, for crying to and for dancing to at weddings."

The band shared four singles so far: lead track "Modern Girl," "Alma Mater" featuring Lana del Rey , "Tiny Moves" and "Me Before You." Through serendipitous melodies and soulful writing, Bleachers commit to "exist in crazy times but remember what counts." 

Bleachers will tour the U.K. in March and the U.S. in May and June.

Kim Gordon - The Collective

Former Sonic Youth vocalist Kim Gordon will release her sophomore LP, The Collective , on March 8. The album is a follow-up to her 2019 debut No Home Record , and furthers her collaboration with producer Justin Raisen, as well as additional producing from Anthony Paul Lopez.

"On this record, I wanted to express the absolute craziness I feel around me right now," said Gordon in a press statement. "This is a moment when nobody really knows what truth is, when facts don’t necessarily sway people, when everyone has their own side, creating a general sense of paranoia. To soothe, to dream, escape with drugs, TV shows, shopping, the internet, everything is easy, smooth, convenient, branded. It made me want to disrupt, to follow something unknown, maybe even to fail."

Back in January, the singer unveiled the album’s moody first single, "Bye Bye," and a music video starring her daughter, Coco Gordon Moore. The second single, "I’m A Man," came out in February. Gordon will play six concerts in support of The Collective , starting March 21 in Burlington, Vermont.

Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine

It’s been almost four years since Ariana Grande’s last studio album, 2020’s Positions . The starlet spent the past few years filming Wicked , an adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name, and declared that she wouldn’t be releasing any new records until it was done.

The wait is finally over, as Grande announced her seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine . The album’s first and only single, "Yes, And?," dropped in January, followed by an Instagram video of the soprano singer explaining the concept of the album to her Republic Records team. 

"It’s kind of a concept album ’cause it’s all different heightened pieces of the same story, of the same experience," she said. "Some of [the songs] are really vulnerable, some of them are like playing the part of what people kind of expect me to be sometimes and having fun with it."

"I think this one may be your favorite," Grande wrote of Eternal Sunshine on her Instagram Story. "It is mine." The 13-song collection will reportedly explore house and R&B, and will have only one feature: Grande’s grandmother, who appears on the last track, "Ordinary Things."

Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign - Vultures 2

After a series of delays, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign ’s first collaborative album, Vultures 1 , ultimately dropped on Feb. 10, 2024. Set to be the first installment of a trilogy, the album was released independently through West’s YZY label, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with all of its 16 tracks also charting on Billboard ’s Hot 100.

Billed as ¥$, the duo plans to release Vultures 2 on March 8, and follow up with Vultures 3 on April 5. Although any other info about the upcoming volumes is still unclear, Timbaland recently shared on X (formerly Twitter) that Vultures 2 is "OTW." (Timbaland produced Vultures 1 ’s "Keys to My Life" and "Fuk Sumn" with Playboi Carti and Travis Scott .)

In the past month, West and $ign held a few listening parties for the album in the U.S. and Europe, but additional schedules are yet to be revealed.

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, alt-rock band the Jesus and Mary Chain will release their eighth studio album, Glasgow Eyes , on March 8.

As it can be seen on lead single "Jamcod," the Scottish group still runs strong on the distorted synths and electrifying guitars that shaped their sound. "People should expect a Jesus and Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what Glasgow Eyes is," vocalist Jim Reid said in a statement. "Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes."

Glasgow Eyes also mends a six-year gap since the Jesus and Mary Chain’s latest album, 2017’s Damage and Joy . To further commemorate, the band will also release an autobiography and embark on a European tour throughout March and April.

Justin Timberlake - Everything I Thought It Was

Release date: March 15

Justin Timberlake is back with his first studio album since 2018’s Man of the Woods . The new record, Everything I Thought It Was ,  is spearheaded by singles "Selfish" and "Drown."

"I worked for a long time on this album, and I ended up with 100 songs. So, narrowing them down to 18 was a thing," said Timberlake in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. "I’m really excited about this album. I think every artist probably says this, but it is my best work." The Memphis singer also shared that there are "incredibly honest" moments in the album, but also "a lot of f—ng fun."

To celebrate his return, Timberlake announced his Forget Tomorrow World Tour. Set to kick off on April 29 in Vancouver, the tour will cross through North America and Europe until its final date on Dec. 16 in Indianapolis.

Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well

Fresh off winning Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 2024 GRAMMYs for the Zach Bryan duet "I Remember Everything," Kacey Musgraves announced her fifth studio album, Deeper Well ..

"My Saturn has returned/ When I turned 27/ Everything started to change," she sings in the contemplative title track, exploring how she changed over the last few years. The single sets the tone for the rest of the record, which was co-produced by longtime collaborators Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian . 

Featuring 14 tracks, Deeper Well was mostly recorded at the legendary Electric Lady studios in New York City. "I was seeking some different environmental energy, and Electric Lady has the best mojo. Great ghosts," the country star noted in a press release.

On social media, Musgraves wrote: "it’s a collection of songs I hold very dear to my heart. I hope it makes a home in all of your hearts, too." Deeper Well follows 2021’s star-crossed . 

Tierra Whack - World Wide Whack

When rapper Tierra Whack released her first album, 2018’s Whack World , she quickly garnered the admiration of both critics and fans. Comprising 15 one-minute tracks and music videos for each, the release was a refreshing introduction to a groundbreaking artist.

In 2024, the Philadelphia-born star is preparing to release World Wide Whack , labeled her official debut album in a press release. The cover artwork, created by Alex Da Corte, was inspired by theater character Pierrot, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and Donna Summer , and represents "the first reveal of the World Wide Whack character, an alter ego both untouchable and vulnerable, superhuman and painfully human, whose surprising story will unfold in images and video over the course of the album’s visual rollout."

The album follows Whack’s 2021 EP trilogy — Rap? , Pop? and R&B? — and is foreshadowed by the poignant "27 Club" and the eccentric "Shower Song."

Tyla - Tyla

Release date: March 22

After a glowing 2023 with viral hit "Water," South African newcomer Tyla started 2024 with a blast. Last month, she became the first person to win a GRAMMY for Best African Music Performance , and the youngest-ever African singer to win a GRAMMY Award at 22 years old.

Next month is poised to be even better: Tyla’s eponymous debut LP drops on March 22, featuring "Water" and other hits like  "Truth or Dare," "Butterflies" and " On and On," as well as a guest appearance by labelmate Travis Scott.

"African music is going global and I’m so blessed to be one of the artists pushing the culture," Tyla shared on Instagram . Her unique blend of amapiano, pop and R&B is making waves around the world, and the star will rightfully celebrate by touring Europe and North America throughout this spring.

Shakira - Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran

The title of Shakira’s new album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran , is a nod to her 2023 hit "Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53" with Argentine DJ Bizarrap. In the lyrics, she states that "las mujeres ya no lloran, las mujeres facturan" — "women don’t cry anymore, they make money."

The single is a diss to Shakira’s ex-partner, footballer Gerard Piqué, and, like the rest of the record, served as a healing experience after their separation. "Making this body of work has been an alchemical process," the Colombian star said in a statement. "While writing each song I was rebuilding myself. While singing them, my tears transformed into diamonds, and my vulnerability into strength."

Las Mujeres will feature 16 songs, including her Bizarrap collaboration and singles "Te Felicito" with Rauw Alejandro , "Copa Vacía" with Manuel Turizo, "Acróstico," "Monotonía" with Ozuna, "El Jefe" with Mexican band Fuerza Regida, and "TQG" with fellow Colombian Karol G .

Back in 2018, Sheryl Crow said that the LP Threads would be her last — fortunately, she changed her mind. "I said I’d never make another record, though there was no point to it," the singer shared in a statement about her upcoming album, Evolution . "This music comes from my soul. And I hope whoever hears this record can feel that."

According to the same statement, " Evolution is Sheryl Crow at her most authentically human self," and its music and lyrics "came from sitting in the quiet and writing from a deep soul place." 

The entire album was written in a month, starting with the title track, which expresses Crow’s anxieties about artificial intelligence and the future of humans. From then on, Crow and producer Mike Elizondo found bliss. "The songs just kept flowing out of me, four songs turned into nine and it was pretty obvious this was an album," she said.

In addition to the album's title track, Crow also shared singles "Do It Again" and "Alarm Clock."

Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell

Release date: March 29

After nearly three decades together, punk-metal mavericks Sum 41 are parting ways. Their final release will be a double album. Heaven :x: Hell , set to drop on March 29.

Heaven is composed of 10 pop-punk tracks reminiscent of the band’s early years, while Hell is 10 tracks of pure heavy metal, reflecting the direction they took more recently. "Once I heard the music, I was confident enough to say, ‘This is the record I’d like to go out on,'" frontman Deryck Whibley said in a statement. "We’ve made a double album of pop punk and metal, and it makes sense. It took a long time for us to pave this lane for ourselves, but we did, and it’s unique to us."

The band shared singles "Landmines," "Rise Up" and "Waiting on a Twist of Fate," and proved that they’re leaving on top of their game. "I love Sum 41, what we’ve achieved, endured, and stuck together through, which is why I want to call it quits," Whibley added. "It’s the right time to walk away from it. I’m putting all of my energy into what’s ahead."

But before embarking on new ventures, Sum 41 will spend the rest of the year touring throughout Asia, North America, and Europe.

Blu DeTiger - All I Ever Want Is Everything

At only 26 years old, Blu DeTiger has already toured with Caroline Polachek , played bass for Jack Antonoff’s band Bleachers, partnered with Fender, and appeared on the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30’s music list.

Now, she prepares to release her debut studio album, All I Ever Want Is Everything . "This album is about growing and becoming, settling into yourself and learning to love where you’re at through it all. It’s about learning how to be your own best friend," the bassist and singer wrote on Instagram .

"Dangerous Game," the lead single off the album, showcases DeTiger’s effervescent energy and potential for pop stardom. Starting April, she will also headline a U.S. tour across Boston, Washington D.C., New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Beyoncé - Act II

What better event to announce a new album than the most-watched TV program ever ? That’s what Beyoncé did during Super Bowl LVIII, on Feb. 11. At the end of a Verizon commercial , the singer declared "Okay, they ready. Drop the new music," while simultaneously releasing Act II ’s lead singles, "16 Carriages" and "Texas Hold 'Em," on social media and streaming platforms.

Coming out March 29, Act II is the second part of Beyoncé’s ongoing trilogy, which was written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. The album is preceded by 2022’s acclaimed Act I: Renaissance , but instead of house and disco, the singer will reportedly take a deep dive into country music.

This isn’t Queen Bey’s first foray into the genre — in 2016, she released Lemonade ’s "Daddy Lessons," and her 2021 IVY PARK Rodeo collection was inspired by "the overlooked history of the American Black cowboy," as she told Harper’s Bazaar . It was just a question of time for Beyoncé to enter her country era, and it is finally upon us.

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How Beyoncé Is Honoring Black Music History With "Texas Hold Em," 'Renaissance' & More

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood/GettyImages

How Beyoncé Is Honoring Black Music History With "Texas Hold Em," 'Renaissance' & More

From ventures into country and dance music, Bey's drive for creativity is an exercise in freedom.

The most powerful thing for a Black woman to be is free; to embrace freedom of expression, freedom of agency and freedom of autonomy. In all aspects and areas of our lives, Black women strive to be free. 

In the Black American consciousness, freedom takes on a political nature. But the ways in which we reach our freedom, individually and collectively, are complex and nuanced. Take Beyoncé for example: To the average African American, she is free; her billionaire status frees her from participation in a capitalist state plagued by classism, sexism, and racism.

Yet an individual actor (regardless of star status or income bracket) cannot free themselves from the system at large. And one of the few spaces where people who live on the margins can find a freedom similar to that of a 32-time GRAMMY winning icon is on the dancefloor.

Dance has always been a source of liberation for Black people, where "...shakes of the head, bending of the spinal column, throwing of the whole body backward may be deciphered as in an open book the huge effort of a community to exorcise itself, to liberate itself, to explain itself," philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth . In a scene from Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé , the singer shares a similar sentiment: "This tour…I feel liberated. I have transitioned into a new animal."

This is not Beyoncé’s first attempt at liberation, but it may be her most vocal. Her journey first began in 2013 with the release of Beyoncé , followed by 2016’s Lemonade, and continued on 2022’s Renaissance . Throughout these three albums, she has made declarative statements about her role in 21st century pop culture feminism, reveled in the exploration of Black Southern womanhood identity, and blended these intersecting identities to form a new being. 

It’s poetic how Beyoncé uses music to define herself. In lieu of speaking directly to the press, she has used the vehicle of pop culture to communicate her needs, desires, as well as her understanding of the world. The strategy has proven successful: Through her groundbreaking and popular works, Beyoncé has dominated much media for the past decade. She knows that whoever controls the media, controls the mind. 

Her last two albums have consciously explored genres created by Black artists, whose contributions had disappeared from the narrative. In the media frenzy that inevitably follows Bey's releases, the icon put this history — as well as contemporary artists — back on the global consciousness. 

When Renaissance dropped, the artistry and voices of Big Freedia, Grace Jones , Honey Dijon, Moi Renee, and TS Madison were heard across the world. However, their presence was more than a simple collaboration or feature."This a reminder," Beyoncé says on "Cozy," the album’s second track. 

The album — an auditory homage to the house music her late uncle Johnny loved — introduced audiences to the above artists, all of whom have made their own impacts on dance music. But it also educated listeners about the Black trans and queer underground dance scenes that birthed dance music and culture. In " chocolate cities ," such as Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, dance music was liberation music. Renaissance is and continues to be a call for liberation.

Read more: Obsessed With Beyoncé's 'Renaissance'? Keep The Dance Party Going With Albums From Frankie Knuckles, Big Freedia & More

But liberation becomes confusing when it is Southern. Although the South has a long history of Black liberation — extending as far back as maroon communities to the freedom rides movement to protests against police training facilities in Atlanta — it still is associated with enslavement in the African American mind. 

Country music, a genre with roots in the musical styling and traditions of Black people in Appalachia and the South, becomes whitewashed over time. This erasure, amplified through gender and racial discrimination policies, paints the South and country music as a hostile environment for Black Americans. 

As a result, the banjo, " an instrument of innovation and collaboration ," an instrument that is of African origin often used in minstrel shows and artists in blackface, becomes associated with the degradation of Black people. It is no coincidence that the banjo takes prominence on "Texas Hold Em"; when Rhiannon Giddens plays the banjo on the track she recontextualizes a fraught relationship between African Americans and country music.

So what happens when the most powerful entertainer in the world reminds people that she is not only Southern, but country in nature? The world begins to lose its mind. 

Prior to the release of "16 Carriages" and "Texas Hold Em," Beyoncé had attended two significant events in western wear: The 66th GRAMMY Awards and Super Bowl LVIII. Donning a Stetson hat and a bolo tie ( the official state tie of Texas ), everything signaled a return to home. A return to the South. 

As a little girl, Beyoncé spent summers in Alabama with her paternal grandparents ; her grandfather would play and sing country music to her. With such foundational experiences, it makes sense why Beyoncé would use country music to describe the theft of her girlhood on "16 Carriages."

Throughout her discography, Beyoncé has alluded to her country origins — from costuming in her early days as the frontwoman of Destiny’s Child to songs like "Creole" and "Formation." And while she may not have held country in a full-on embrace, its spirit has never left her. 

Yet, she needed to experience liberation of the Renaissance World Tour to bring this version of herself forward. On tour, she found liberation in the booming voice of ballroom legend and commentator Kevin JZ Prodigy , and through the joy of her daughter Blue Ivy Carter . Beyoncé found liberation not only through her dancers, narrator and her daughter, but in the ways in which the stage provided an opportunity for them all to be free. 

She needed to be liberated in order to be the most actualized version of herself. A self, unlike the little girl in Alabama, who knows how unwelcoming the country music industry can be .

One singular action cannot bring forth liberation, and Beyoncé cannot take down the country music industry by herself. However, she can work in unison with Black country musicians like Rhiannon Giddens and Robert Randolph on "16 Carriages" and "Texas Hold Em" to make a change in the industry.

Her presence is giving visibility to the artists who have been working in country music long before Bey entered the playing field. Shortly after the release of "16 Carriages" and "Texas Hold Em," Black female country artists such as Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, K. Michelle, Rhiannon Giddens, and Rissi Palmer received a significant increase in streams. Palmer is one of the few Black women in the genre to chart on Billboard , prior to Beyoncé breaking the mold as the first Black woman to top the Billboard country chart.   

Although she is one powerful person, Beyoncé understands each movement in music, culture, and politics is the byproduct of those who have come before her like Linda Martell , the first Black woman country star. 

There is much to be speculated about the lasting impacts act ii, scheduled for release on March 29, will have on the country music industry, Its arrival certainly heralds an important impact on the artist herself. 

Beyoncé is free, in her career, sound and attitude toward life. And the unintended (or possibly intended) consequence of her freedom and self actualization is that Black people in country music are allowed to be free too. 

How Beyoncé Has Empowered The Black Community Across Her Music And Art | Black Sounds Beautiful

Songbook: The Ultimate Guide To Rihanna's Reign, From Her Record-Breaking Hits To Unforgettable Collabs

Photos: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation, Greetsia Tent/WireImage, Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Songbook: The Ultimate Guide To Rihanna's Reign, From Her Record-Breaking Hits To Unforgettable Collabs

As the world eagerly awaits Rihanna's musical comeback, GRAMMY.com takes a deep dive into the superstar's catalog and celebrates her evolution from teen idol to beloved icon.

A chance meeting changed Rihanna 's life.

The singer was just 15 years old when she met producer Evan Rogers, who was vacationing with his wife in Barbados. Rogers recognized Rihanna's potential, and invited her to an audition in his hotel suite. 

Shortly after her 16th birthday, Rihanna left her home country for the U.S. to record a demo, which included her breakthrough hit "Pon de Replay." The demo found its way into Jay-Z 's hands, and Hov signed the teen artist to Def Jam and the label expedited her 2005 debut album, aptly titled Music of the Sun .

"When I left Barbados, I didn't look back," Rihanna told Entertainment Weekly in 2007. "I wanted to do what I had to do [to succeed], even if it meant moving to America." 

Twenty years later, Rihanna is a renowned entertainer-turned-mogul. She has sold over 40 million albums worldwide, garnered over 12 billion Spotify streams, achieved 14 Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, and won nine GRAMMY Awards. Even her business ventures have been a massive success, as her Fenty Beauty brand is worth $2.8 billion.

Though it's been close to a decade since Rihanna's last studio album, 2016's ANTI , she reminded the world of her reign with her 2023 Super Bowl halftime show — which also marked her first time taking the stage in five years. Performing hit after hit while unveiling a baby bump, her 13-minute set became one of the most-watched halftime shows of all time with over 121 million viewers. 

In honor of Rihanna's 36th birthday on Feb. 20, GRAMMY.com is revisiting the monstrous hits, ambitious projects, brow-raising visuals, and iconic collabs that propelled her to international stardom — and why it's all put her in a league of her own.

A New Island Girl In Town

True to her Carribean heritage, Rihanna's dancehall-inspired debut single "Pon de Replay" earned the then 17-year-old Barbados native her first entry on the Hot 100 at an impressive No. 2. Her official introduction to the world also hit No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart; she boasts 33 on the tally, second behind only the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna .

Follow-up single "If It's Lovin' That You Want" stalled at No. 36 on the Hot 100, but still whetted fans' appetite — as did her debut album, Music of the Sun , which is mostly comprised of dance-pop and dancehall tracks with hints of R&B (like "Willing to Wait"). Plus, her reimagining of Dawn Penn's 1994 reggae classic "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)" is still so fun to listen to after all these years.

A mere eight months later, Rihanna's sophomore effort, 2006's A Girl Like Me , arrived to an eager audience. Defying the sophomore slump, she celebrated her first No. 1 with the ubiquitous lead single "SOS," which famously samples Soft Cell's 1981 hit, "Tainted Love." While A Girl Like Me is filled with high-energy, danceable tracks (including the nostalgic "Break It Off" with Sean Paul ), Rihanna's second single was the melodramatic ballad "Unfaithful." 

Penned by then-labelmate Ne-Yo , "Unfaithful" peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100. More importantly, it showed a different side to Rihanna, proving that she could channel deep emotion when the performance calls for it. It also marked Rihanna's first time veering away from her "girl next door" image, as the song's subject matter deals with infidelity.

A Girl Like Me contains many fan favorites, from the laid-back "We Ride" to standouts "Dem Haters" and "Kisses Don't Lie." The latter is a reggae-rock hybrid that sounds like a catalyst for some of Rihanna's edgier tunes like "Breakin' Dishes" from 2007's Good Girl Gone Bad era. Touching ballads"Final Goodbye" and "A Million Miles Away" showcase her voice beautifully, foreshadowing later big-vocal numbers like "Love on the Brain."

An Icon In The Making

Rihanna was a familiar face by 2007, but with the arrival of her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad , she graduated from cookie-cutter pop star to bonafide icon.

Produced by Tricky Stewart , the LP's juggernaut lead single "Umbrella" featuring Jay-Z skyrocketed to No. 1 in 17 countries. Between striking images of Rihanna's silver-painted silhouette in the accompanying video and the now-iconic "ella-ella, eh, eh, eh" hook, "Umbrella" thrust the then 19-year-old into another stratosphere. Her confident delivery also commanded attention in a way fans and critics hadn't heard before.

The transformative era also birthed the gritty "Shut Up and Drive," on which Rihanna channels her inner rock star. The next two singles cracked the top 10: an affectionate duet with Ne-Yo,  "Hate That I Love You," which showed off Rihanna's softer side, and the party-starting, Michael Jackson -sampling "Don't Stop the Music," which cemented her place in the digital era. 

The melancholy "Rehab" is a clever metaphor for lost love, co-written by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake . Despite being Good Girl Gone Bad 's lowest-charting single, Timberlake heralded the song as "the bridge for her to be accepted as an adult in the music industry."

Good Girl Gone Bad remains Rihanna's best-selling album and marks her greatest reinvention as she adopted a more rebellious sound. She also won her first GRAMMY in 2008 (Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Umbrella") and scored four other nominations, including Record Of The Year. The album's reissue spawned two more No. 1s: "Take a Bow" and "Disturbia," the latter of which acts like a prelude to Rated R , which saw Rihanna exploring darker themes.

Nine months before the release of 2009's Rated R , Rihanna was assaulted by then-boyfriend Chris Brown . On the deeply personal album, she translated her pain into art. Through lead single "Russian Roulette" and bitingly catchy anthems "Stupid in Love," "Fire Bomb," "Photographs," "Cold Case Love," and "The Last Song," Rihanna explored her angst and confusion.

But to focus solely on the domestic violence incident undermines Rihanna's artistic vision. 

Following three multi-platinum albums in a three-year span, Rihanna's rebranding as a rebel at heart reached its apex. The singer had grown in leaps and bounds while taking musical risks, even penning nine of Rated R 's 13 tracks (she had no writing credits on Good Girl Gone Bad ).

The road to Rihanna's most badass anthems — including "Bitch Better Have My Money" — can be traced back to Rated R . Case in point: Her bravado is loud and clear on "Hard," "Wait Your Turn," and "G4L." On "Rockstar 101," which features legendary rocker Slash , Rihanna declares her power: "Six inch walker/ Big sh— talker/ I never play the victim/ I'd rather be a stalker."

Badgal RiRi returned to her dancehall roots on her fifth No. 1 "Rude Boy," which offsets the album's harrowing motif. Final single "Te Amo" didn't chart, but garnered a great deal of attention as the Latin-infused Stargate production depicts Rihanna being enticed by a female love interest. 

Rated R showcased Rihanna's undeniable star power, and allowed her to shed her good-girl image once and for all.

A Partygoer's Dream

Following the career-pivoting Rated R , 2010's Loud offered a welcome return to the West Indian artist's earlier sound. The album feels like one big celebration of life, as evidenced by Rihanna's fire-engine red hair and No. 1 singles "Only Girl (In the World)" and "What's My Name?" (the latter of which was Rih's first collaboration with Drake ).

Best described as "Don't Stop the Music" 2.0, the effervescent "Only Girl" marked her eminent return to the dance floor and took home a GRAMMY for Best Dance Recording in 2011. While "What's My Name?" may not outshine Rih and Drizzy's other collabs — including 2011's "Take Care" or 2016's "Work" — the second she sings, "Hey, boy, I really wanna see if you can go downtown with a girl like me," it's impossible not to whine your waist to the riddim.

Easily one of Rihanna's most overlooked hits, "Cheers (Drink to That)" is built around an unexpected sample of Avril Lavigne 's 2002 hit "I'm With You," but it works surprisingly well as a party anthem. That same carefree spirit can be heard in the feminist track "Raining Men," which features Nicki Minaj — their first of two collabs, as they joined forces again for "Fly," the final single off the rapper's iconic Pink Friday album. 

A playful ode to sadomasochism and bondage, "S&M" contains some of Rihanna's most provocative lyrics: "Sticks and stones may break my bones/ But chains and whips excite me," she declares on the chorus. 

Banned in 11 countries upon its release, the accompanying video features Rihanna tied up in pink rope, dancing with a blowup doll, and donning a Playboy bunny-esque costume as damning newsreels about herself flash across the screen. But Rihanna's love of kink made her an even bigger star: "S&M" produced a remix with Britney Spears and earned Rihanna her 10th No. 1 single. With this feat, she became the youngest artist to attain the most chart-toppers in a five-year span.

On "Man Down," Rihanna's patois is in full effect as she takes listeners through a gripping tale about murdering her abuser. "What started out as a simple altercation/ Turned into a real sticky situation," she laments in the opening verse, amplified by siren noises in the background. There's something so satisfying about Rihanna's Bajan accent as she unfurls "Rum-pum-pum-pum" repeatedly over an intensifying reggae beat that would make Sister Nancy and Bob Marley proud.

Nominated for Album Of The Year at the 2021 GRAMMYs, Loud is Rihanna's second most commercially successful LP — and for good reason. It was especially refreshing to see Rihanna emerge from one of the darkest periods of her life as exuberant as ever.

An Unapologetic Queen

Sonically and thematically, Talk That Talk doesn't break new ground, but Rih's DGAF attitude is front and center with plenty of sexual innuendos: Songs like "S&M" and "Rude Boy" seem pretty tame next to "Cockiness (Love It)," which features longtime friend-turned-boyfriend A$AP Rocky on its remix. "Suck my cockiness/ Lick my persuasion/ Eat my poison/ And swallow your pride down, down," she commands in the tantalizing chorus.

At just over a minute long, "Birthday Cake" leaves nothing to the imagination ("It's not even my birthday, but he wanna lick the icing off"). Rihanna controversially released a full-length version in the form of a remix with Chris Brown.

On an album that mostly sees Rihanna singing about her sexual fantasies, "We All Want Love" pulls back the curtain as it reveals her desire for true love: "And some say love ain't worth the buck/ But I'll give my last dime/ To have what I've only been dreaming about." 

Her longing continues in "Where Have You Been," which flaunts Rihanna's versatility, flipping Geoff Mack's 1959 country song "I've Been Everywhere" into an infectious EDM banger. Lead single "We Found Love" is undeniably the biggest hit to stem from the Talk That Talk era, spending 10 consecutive weeks atop the Hot 100. 

Boosting Calvin Harris ' career, "We Found Love" presents one juxtaposition after the other: dark yet gleaming, euphoric yet sobering, fraught yet hopeful. Rihanna relies on more than just evocative lyrics to tell her story; accompanying synthesizers and alarm bells help to paint a picture as well. Met with controversy, its intense visuals portraying a drug-fueled, toxic relationship — and featuringwhat many speculated was a Chris Brown look-alike — earned RiRi a GRAMMY for Best Long Form Music Video in 2013.

Seven years into an already extraordinary career, 2012's Unapologetic became Rihanna's first album to debut at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. Its lead single "Diamonds" resonated in an equally major way, giving Rih her 12th No. 1 on the Hot 100.

Written by Sia , the power ballad kicked off another exciting era for the Barbadian singer, who unleashes an impassioned vocal performance. One of Rihanna's most precious offerings to date, "Diamonds" emerged as a self-love mantra due to its uplifting "Shine bright like a diamond" chant.

Vocally, Rihanna's strength lies in her ability to evoke raw emotion à la "Stay." Featuring Mikky Ekko , the stripped-down, slow-burning piano ballad narrowly missed the top spot on the Hot 100 but gave Rihanna her 24th top 10 hit, surpassing Whitney Houston 's record of 23 in 2013.

Her swagger is boisterous in "Phresh Out the Runway," "Jump," and strip club anthem "Pour It Up," but "Nobody's Business" really drives home the album's theme of being unbothered. Her decision to join forces with Chris Brown yet again perplexed fans and critics alike, though the track itself is an irresistible production that features a genius interpolation of Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel."

Further down the track list, "Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary" is as autobiographical as it gets, and further taps into Rihanna's emotionally vulnerable side. "Mr. Jesus, I'd love to be a queen/ But I'm from the left side of an island/ Never thought this many people would even know my name," she pleads in the seven-minute two-parter.

Unapologetic spawned fewer hit singles compared to Rihanna's previous efforts. Its win for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2014 GRAMMYs, however, proved that Rihanna's reign wasn't letting up anytime soon.

While recording her then-forthcoming album, ANTI , Rihanna delivered what is arguably the single most unapologetic moment of her career: "Bitch Better Have My Money." The backstory is almost inconceivable given Rihanna's awe-inspiring billionaire status, but in 2009, Rihanna faced bankruptcy due to her accountants mishandling her funds — and thus "Bitch" was born six years later in 2015.

With lyrics like "Your wife in the backseat of my brand new foreign car" over a cryptic-sounding trap beat and an accompanying video depicting kidnapping and torturing her debtors, "Bitch" is not for the faint-hearted. The one-off single is so quintessentially Rihanna that it notably kicked off her Super Bowl halftime show.

An In-Demand Collaborator

While bestowing hit after hit on her own, Rihanna generously lent her distinct voice to some of her biggest peers. 2008 marks one of the earliest instances of her Midas touch: She flirts with funk in Maroon 5 's underappreciated "If I Never See Your Face Again" before hopping on T.I .'s "Live Your Life," which shot straight to No. 1 on the Hot 100.

In 2009, Rihanna joined Jay-Z and Kanye West for the militant "Run This Town," sounding defiant as ever in the intro. She was called upon again for West's horn-laden "All of the Lights," flying solo on the hook followed by a star-studded choir that included Alicia Keys , John Legend , Fergie , and Elton John . Both larger-than-life productions won GRAMMYs for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

In between joining forces with Hov and Ye, Rihanna assisted Eminem in "Love the Way You Lie," which struck a nerve with many for its gut-wrenching lyrics shedding a light on abusive relationships. (Rih recorded an equally moving sequel for her Loud album.) Three years later, the two confronted their inner demons in "The Monster," and their musical chemistry scored a GRAMMY in 2015 for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

Amid smash collabs, Rihanna and Coldplay 's intricate "Princess of China" number gets lost in the shuffle, but it speaks to her charm as it's the band's first album (2011's Mylo Xyloto ) to feature another artist. Another overlooked jam, her sultry "Can't Remember to Forget You" duet with Shakira sees both stars trade lines about struggling to let go of an undeserving lover.

On paper, a collaboration between Rihanna, Kanye West, and Sir Paul McCartney may seem strange, but the unlikely trio is further proof that opposites attract. Their "FourFiveSeconds" is a pop-folk hybrid with a universal message about carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. It's yet another example of Rihanna's willingness to push past her comfort zone to create something unique.

A year later, Rihanna got listeners on their feet by way of the Taylor Swift -penned "This Is What You Came For" with Calvin Harris. Understated compared to the duo's previous megahits ("We Found Love" and "Where Have You Been"), Harris' signature DJing style and Rih's ethereal vocals are a perfect match.

In 2017, Rih, DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller dropped the song of the summer with "Wild Thoughts," which heavily borrows from Carlos Santana 's 1999 GRAMMY-winning "Maria Maria." It may be DJ Khaled's song, but RiRi owns it from the very moment she utters, "I don't know if you could take it/ Know you wanna see me nakey, nakey, naked." The bop reached No. 2 on the Hot 100.

She spits bars in Kendrick Lamar 's "Loyalty" and "Lemon" with N.E.R.D. , the latter of which comes close to rivaling your favorite rappers' verses: "You can catch me, Rih, in the new La Ferrar'/ And the truck behind me got arms/ Yeah, longer than LeBron/ Just waitin' for my thumb like The Fonz."

No matter what genre Rihanna touches or what artist she links up with, she brings her full self to each session whilst completely immersing herself into the music — taking on different personas to make the collab well worth it.

An Artist Fully Realized

With 13 No. 1s and twice as many top 10 hits under her belt, Rihanna set out to create timeless music instead of chasing a radio-friendly formula with her 2016 magnum opus, ANTI .

But that shift began with 2015's criminally underrated "American Oxygen." Her most political statement at the time, the goosebump-inducing lyrics detail Rihanna's journey as an immigrant, foreshadowing her then soon-to-be massive Fenty Beauty success. "We sweat for a nickel and a dime/ Turn it into an empire," she sings in the chorus.

Released four years after Unapologetic — her longest gap between albums at the time — ANTI illustrated Rihanna's greater desire for quality over quantity. "I needed the music to match my growth," she told Vogue in 2016 about the making of ANTI . "I didn't want to get caught up with anything the world liked, anything the radio liked, anything that I liked, that I've already heard. I just wanted it to be me."

The black-and-white, red paint-splattered album cover signals a rebirth, featuring a real-life image of Rihanna as a child. ANTI lives up to its name in its first 40 seconds, via opening track "Consideration." The minute she declares, "I got to do things my own way, darling," it's apparent that ANTI is not your average Rihanna album.

Lead single "Work" is the closest to pre- ANTI Rihanna on an album that defies expectations. But the dancehall masterpiece is one of a kind for Rih's refusal to water down the Jamaican patois (different from her native language of Bajan Creole) — proving that she is fully aware of her impact as one of the biggest Caribbean-born artists to make it in the U.S.

Many non-understanding listeners described it as "gibberish" at the time. Yet, the general public didn't seem to mind: About a month after its release, "Work" became Rihanna's 14th and longest-running chart-topper on the Hot 100. Weeks later, ANTI became her second LP to top the Billboard 200 chart. Subsequently, Rihanna held the No. 1 spots on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously, her second time achieving such an impressive feat.

Read More: How Rihanna's "Work" Reinvigorated Dancehall

ANTI is full of pleasant surprises that show off her artistry. Rihanna comes out of left field with the Prince -inspired "Kiss It Better," the album's second single, which sees the superstar falling back on addictive sex that "feels like crack" to justify a destructive relationship. "Same Ol' Mistakes" is a cover of psychedelic rock band Tame Impala 's "New Person, Same Old Mistakes" — her first time remaking another artist's song for her own album since "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)" on Music of the Sun . The Western-themed "Desperado" lends itself particularly well to covers by country artists, while the Dido -sampling "Never Ending" conveys the uncertainty she feels about entering a new relationship.

Elsewhere on ANTI , Rihanna drunk dials an ex ("Higher"), compares smoking weed to her lover ("James Joint"), and chastises a guy for getting emotionally attached after their fling ("Needed Me"). The latter song contains one of Rihanna's most empowering lyrics: "Didn't they tell you that I was a savage?/ F— ya white horse and ya carriage," she asserts in the pre-chorus.

Her voice sounds stronger than ever on "Love on the Brain," a doo-wop ballad resembling Etta James . But Rihanna makes it her own thanks to the bluntness of lines like "It beats me black and blue but it f— me so good."

The deep cuts on ANTI aren't merely fillers, and even rival some of the album's biggest hits. For instance, "Sex with Me" is featured on the deluxe edition as a bonus track, but managed to crack the Hot 100 at No. 83 and reach No. 8 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. Furthermore, the deluxe edition consists of 16 tracks, half of which topped the Dance Club Songs chart — smashing the record (previously held by Katy Perry 's Teenage Dream ) for the most No. 1s from a single album.

Accolades aside, ANTI is proof that magic happens when an artist of Rihanna's caliber follows their own instincts in pursuit of creating a body of work — one that can outlast them and continue to inspire generations to come.

Ever since ANTI , Rihanna's devoted fanbase has been begging for a new album, with Rih playfully trolling them with responses like "I lost it" and Instagram captions that read, "Me listening to R9 by myself and refusing to release it."

Her much-awaited return to music came at the tail end of 2022. The hitmaker twice contributed to the GRAMMY-nominated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack: "Born Again" and "Lift Me Up," the latter of which helped Rihanna score her first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations in 2022 and 2023, respectively. With the glorious "Lift Me Up," she found herself in the top 10 for the first time since 2017's "Wild Thoughts."

While the world is still anticipating her ninth studio album, Rihanna — now a mom of two boys — continues to make her own rules and move at her own pace. But as she's proven time and time again, it's always worth the wait.

The Rihanna Essentials: 15 Singles To Celebrate The Singer's Endless Pop Reign

17 Love Songs That Have Won GRAMMYs: "I Will Always Love You," "Drunk In Love" & More

Photo: L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Over the GRAMMYs' 66-year history, artists from Frank Sinatra to Ed Sheeran have taken home golden gramophones for their heartfelt tunes. Take a look at some of the love songs that have won GRAMMYs.

Editor's Note: This is an update to a story from 2017.

Without heart-bursting, world-shifting love songs, music wouldn't be the same. There are countless classic and chart-topping hits dedicated to love, and several of them have won GRAMMYs.

We're not looking at tunes that merely deal with shades of love or dwell in heartbreak. We're talking out-and-out, no-holds-barred musical expressions of affection — the kind of love that leaves you wobbly at the knees.

No matter how you're celebrating Valentine's Day (or not), take a look at 18 odes to that feel-good, mushy-gushy love that have taken home golden gramophones over the years.

Frank Sinatra , "Strangers In The Night"

Record Of The Year / Best Vocal Performance, Male, 1967

Ol' Blue Eyes offers but a glimmer of hope for the single crowd on Valentine's Day, gently ruminating about exchanging glances with a stranger and sharing love before the night is through.

Willie Nelson , "Always On My Mind"

Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, 1983

In this cover, Nelson sings to the woman in his life, lamenting over those small things he should have said and done, but never took the time. Don't find yourself in the same position this Valentine's Day.

Lionel Richie , "Truly"

Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, 1983

"Truly" embodies true dedication to a loved one, and it's delivered with sincerity from the king of '80s romantic pop — who gave life to the timeless love-song classics "Endless Love," "Still" and "Three Times A Lady."

Roy Orbison , "Oh, Pretty Woman"

Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, 1991

Orbison captures the essence of encountering a lovely woman for the first time, and offers helpful one-liners such as "No one could look as good as you" and "I couldn't help but see … you look as lovely as can be." Single men, take notes.

Whitney Houston , "I Will Always Love You"

Record Of The Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, 1994

Houston passionately delivers a message of love, remembrance and forgiveness on her version of this song, which was written by country sweetheart Dolly Parton and first nominated for a GRAMMY in 1982.

Celine Dion , "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme From Titanic)"  

Record Of The Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, 1999

This omnipresent theme song from the 1997 film Titanic was propelled to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 as the story of Jack and Rose (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and GRAMMY winner Kate Winslet) swept the country.

Shania Twain , "You're Still The One"

Best Female Country Vocal Performance, Best Country Song, 1999

Co-written with producer and then-husband Mutt Lange, Twain speaks of beating the odds with love and perseverance in lyrics such as, "I'm so glad we made it/Look how far we've come my baby," offering a fresh coat of optimism for couples of all ages.

Usher & Alicia Keys , "My Boo"

Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals, 2005

"There's always that one person that will always have your heart," sings Usher in this duet with Keys, taking the listener back to that special first love. The chemistry between the longtime friends makes this ode to “My Boo” even more heartfelt, and the love was still palpable even 20 years later when they performed it on the Super Bowl halftime show stage.

Bruno Mars , "Just The Way You Are"

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, 2011

Dating advice from Bruno Mars: If you think someone is beautiful, you should tell them every day. Whether or not it got Mars a date for Valentine's Day, it did get him a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Cee Lo Green & Melanie Fiona , "Fool For You" 

Best Traditional R&B Performance, 2012

It's a far cry from his previous GRAMMY-winning song, "F*** You," but "Fool For You" had us yearning for "that deep, that burning/ That amazing unconditional, inseparable love."

Justin Timberlake , "Pusher Love Girl" 

Best R&B Song, 2014

Timberlake is so high on the love drug he's "on the ceiling, baby." Timberlake co-wrote the track with James Fauntleroy, Jerome Harmon and Timbaland, and it's featured on his 2013 album The 20/20 Experience , which flew high to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Beyoncé & Jay-Z , "Drunk In Love"

Best R&B Performance / Best R&B Song, 2015

While "Drunk In Love" wasn't the first love song that won Beyoncé and Jay-Z a GRAMMY — they won two GRAMMYs for "Crazy In Love" in 2004 — it is certainly the sexiest. This quintessential 2010s bop from one of music's most formidable couples captures why their alliance set the world's hearts aflame (and so did their steamy GRAMMYs performance of it).

Ed Sheeran , "Thinking Out Loud"

Song Of The Year / Best Pop Solo Performance, 2016

Along with his abundant talent, Sheeran's boy-next-door charm is what rocketed him to the top of the pop ranks. And with swooning lyrics and a waltzing melody, "Thinking Out Loud" is proof that he's a modern-day monarch of the love song.

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper , "Shallow"

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance / Best Song Written For Visual Media, 2019

A Star is Born 's cachet has gone up and down with its various remakes, but the 2018 iteration was a smash hit. Not only is that thanks to moving performances from Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, but particularly thanks to their impassioned, belt-along duet "Shallow."

H.E.R. & Daniel Caesar , "Best Part"

Best R&B Performance, 2019

"If life is a movie/ Know you're the best part." Who among us besotted hasn't felt their emotions so widescreen, so thunderous? Clearly, H.E.R. and Daniel Caesar have — and they poured that feeling into the GRAMMY-winning ballad "Best Part."

Kacey Musgraves , "Butterflies"

Best Country Solo Performance, 2019

As Musgraves' Album Of The Year-winning LP Golden Hour shows, the country-pop star can zoom in or out at will, capturing numberless truths about the human experience. With its starry-eyed lyrics and swirling production, "Butterflies" perfectly encapsulates the flutter in your stomach that love can often spark.

Dan + Shay & Justin Bieber , "10,000 Hours"

Best Country Duo/Group Performance, 2021

When country hook-meisters Dan + Shay teamed up with pop phenom Justin Bieber, their love song powers were unstoppable. With more than 1 billion Spotify streams alone, "10,000 Hours" has become far more than an ode to just their respective wives; it's an anthem for any lover.

Lovesick Or Sick Of Love: Listen To GRAMMY.com's Valentine's Day Playlist Featuring Taylor Swift, Doja Cat, Playboi Carti, Olivia Rodrigo, FKA Twigs & More

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Oceans by Jay-Z

jay z yacht song

Songfacts®:

  • Jay ponders the generational effects of the transatlantic slave trade on this cut as he contemplates the lives of his ancestors who traversed the Atlantic Ocean. The aptly named Frank Ocean joins Hova on the song. The R&B singer previously appeared alongside Jay on two Watch the Throne tracks " Made In America " and " No Church in The Wild ."
  • Jay also condemns colonialism. On one line he succeeds in both dissing Christopher Columbus and lauding The Notorious B.I.G: "I'm anti-Santa Maria The only Christopher we acknowledge is Wallace." (Christopher Columbus's ship was called the Santa Maria and Biggie Small's real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace).
  • Jay-Z explained the meaning behind the song in a video preview of the album. "It sounds like a celebration of where we are now on some big yacht, throwing champagne in the water," he told Rick Rubin. "But the undertow of the thing is that this is the same water that brought us here originally as slaves, so it has this whole duality and even how we re-write history, the stories we were told about the history of America."
  • This was the first song that Jay recorded for Magna Carta… Holy Grail . Ocean and Hova laid it down in 2011.
  • Kanye West wanted this and " Magna Carta…Holy Grail 's title track " to be part of his and Jay-Z's joint album Watch The Throne . "[There were] no lyrics on 'Holy Grail' and I recorded 'Oceans' and I played those records for Kanye," Jay explained in an interview with BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe. "And he was like, 'No those have to go on Watch The Throne , so we spent four days arguing about those records and I was explaining to him why it wasn't right for this project and I had a whole idea for making this album called Magna Carta... the Holy Grail [part of] the name came after." Jay added that the argument never really turned nasty, describing it as "four days, four days literally arguing... not like fighting. Well, there was some pushing at one point but not between us, just everyone else got a little excited."
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Big Yellow Taxi Joni Mitchell

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Darlin Avril Lavigne

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Gimme Three Steps Lynyrd Skynyrd

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Thunderstruck AC/DC

Angus Young created the distinctive opening guitar part for "Thuderstruck" by playing with all the strings taped up, except the B. He learned the studio trick from his older brother George Young, who was the rhythm guitarist for The Easybeats.

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Jay-Z’s ‘The Black Album’ Reconsidered

Our culture writer loved this quintessential hip-hop album as a teen. but after the summer of 2020, he started rethinking its message..

Hi, Reggie.

Hi, Dodai. How are you?

I’m doing well. How are you?

I’m doing all right. It’s nice to meet you.

I know. I feel like we’ve emailed.

But we never actually —

Yes, email.

— saw face-to-face, I don’t think. Did we?

No, never face-to-face.

We didn’t. Yeah, OK.

Long-time reader of your work.

Oh, that’s nice. Thank you. That’s like, you’re old.

Not at all.

I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. So, Reggie, you’re a Times culture reporter. Usually, you’re writing about new music. But I hear you’ve been rethinking a classic from 2003, Jay-Z’s “Black Album.” What is that about?

Yeah, so I’ve been thinking about it, because when that album came out in 2003, I was a senior in high school. And it really took over my life. It became the soundtrack of my life.

Lucifer, son of the morning! I’m gonna chase you out of earth.

I connected to it so deeply, and the message of that record.

I’m from the murder capital, where we murder for capital.

I started thinking about that recently in light of last year and what was going on during the pandemic and the protests in response to the death of George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. And it made me revisit that time in my life when I was younger. And I felt like some of the messaging that I was getting from that album and some of the things that I internalized at that age were a little incomplete. There was something that was missing from my understanding of how the world worked and my place in it.

Yeah, so let’s talk about this, like set a scene for young Reggie. What were you doing? Where were you living?

Yeah, so I grew up in the suburbs of Houston in a suburb called Clear Lake. Both of my parents are immigrants from Nigeria. And my siblings and I grew up under the shadow of this fantastical journey that my parents had gone on from those villages to the suburbs in America and, eventually, the middle class. The thing that they drilled into us as kids was education and hard work. A’s were the expectation, and B’s were the floor. Anything less than that was unthinkable.

We had these rules that we had to kind of live by where we were always respectful of our elders, and we didn’t really mess around with the opposite sex, and we didn’t stay out too late. I would go to my friends’ houses. Most of my friends were white, and most of the kids in our neighborhood were white. And it was very clear that they weren’t being held to the same standard, Dodai.

So I would see that, and I would complain about it when I was younger to my parents.

[LAUGHS] Were you jealous?

Yeah, I was jealous. I was like, wait a minute. What’s going on here? Like, how come I have to do all these things? Like, Matt doesn’t have to say “sir” and “madam.” Colin gets to stay out late. And what I would hear back from them is, you don’t get to do what the other kids do. You are not the same as them. The world sees you differently.

Right, right. So clean teen Reggie —

Ha, ha, ha.

— coming from this immigrant, high-achieving family, did you have a vision of what you were going to be when you grew up?

Yeah, I remember thinking about that from a very young age. Even when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a chemist and work with — in a lab coat. I guess that was the primary job requirement that I thought of was working in a lab coat and potentially blowing things up.

That sounds fun.

That kind of stuck or came back around really in my high school years. And I decided that I would take my love of sciences and become a pharmacist and that that would be a good job. I would make good money. I would add some cachet to it. The end goal was some kind of successful professional job. And I really kind of saw myself as being on a mission.

So when are you listening to Jay-Z? When are you having any fun?

Yeah, I mean, we had some fun. Houston is like the epicenter of suburban sprawl, and so it’s a big car culture. And I would drive around in my car, which was this ‘98 Nissan Altima. And that’s where I’d listen to music.

I grew up in Manhattan and never owned a car. I still have never owned a car, so it’s very exotic to me that you were driving around. So which of Jay-Z’s songs were your first introduction to him?

I remember the first song — Jay-Z songs that I was really obsessed with were “Money Ain’t A Thang” and “Big Pimpin’” —

Money ain’t a thing. Bubble hard in the double R, flashing the rings. With the window cracked, holler back, money ain’t a thing.

— both of which came out in the Volume 2 — “Hard Knock Life.”

And what were the things that he was rapping about that spoke to you?

Well, you can kind of hear in the title, “Money Ain’t a Thing” and “Big Pimpin.’” I was around 11 at that time, 11 or 12, and that just seemed like the life. That seemed like it.

Had you seen the “Big Pimpin’” video?

Of course, yes. They’re shaking the champagne. I think it was Cristal champagne that they were spraying on a —

On a yacht.

On the yacht, on the boats with the girls in the bikinis. That was, like, the pinnacle. That was like amazing.

We doing big pimpin’. We spending Gs. Check ‘em out now.

OK, so Jay-Z has all these huge hits. And then a couple of years later, “The Black Album” comes out. And what was your reaction to that?

I had never really heard anything quite like it. Jay-Z was on a mission as well. He had decided that he was going to retire. And so he had done this thing that was, I think, unprecedented really, and for an artist of his stature, certainly in hip hop, where he was — had announced that he’s retiring, and this was going to be his swan song. And not only was it going to be his swan song, but it was explicitly engineered to establish him at a certain place in the rap canon.

And how did that make you feel? It wasn’t champagne on a yacht, really.

It really grabbed me. It really struck me because he was talking in a different way on that record. He was talking in a more personal way. The first song, “December 4th,” is extremely autobiographical. He’s basically dueting with his mom —

Shawn Carter was born December 4th.

— who kind of like tells the story of his life in a way that I had never heard before. And he kind of makes the case for himself as the best that hip-hop has yet produced.

They say they never really miss you till you dead or you gone. So on that note, I’m leaving after the song.

It wasn’t just the partying. It was also a sense of ambition and drive, which was exactly what I felt at that point in my life.

And were there specific lyrics or bars that just stuck with you and grabbed you?

Yeah, I remember there is a line, and I think it’s a “Moment of Clarity.”

I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars.

He says that he dumbed things down for his audience to double his dollars.

Oh, my goodness.

He says, “Truthfully, I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did 5 mil). I ain’t been rhyming like Common since.” And what he’s saying there is, I would rhyme like Common, who is this rapper who is known for his lyricism and his introspection and his consciousness. But he made $5 million. Right? He had some success. He tasted what a hit could do for him, like a “Big Pimpin.’” And he hasn’t been rhyming like Common since.

It was the level of shrewdness that was like he has these gifts. He can go in a number of different directions. But he focused and went in a very specific direction that was going to get him to where he wanted to be, which was 5 mil and beyond in the penthouse suite.

And I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them. So I got rich and gave back. To me that’s the win-win.

It really resonated with me because I felt like I needed to really focus and go in the right direction that was going to get me to that professional job and that big house, and the nice car. That was really important to me at that point in my life.

So you took his being shrewd and calculating as a suggestion that you should also be shrewd and calculating.

Exactly. It was like, this is what it takes. I was kind of taking notes, like, how could I do the same? What was my version of Jay-Z’s shrewdness?

But I guess what I’m wondering is, his kind of like, from the hood to Hollywood is not exactly the same path that you were on —

— seeing as how you were already an honors student. And you’re not in the hood.

But you still found that relatable.

Well, that’s kind of the master stroke of hip-hop, right? It perfectly details this kind of a rags-to-riches idea which is so foundational to, I think, the American dream. And anyone from any background can relate to that feeling or that desire to reach the mountaintop.

And Jay came from the hood. My parents moved mountains to make it to the middle class in the suburbs. And it’s one thing to look at your parents and be inspired by what they do. But if you can look at someone as glamorous as Jay-Z, that’s kind of the more fun model if you’re a 18-year-old boy, I think.

I mean, I think there is something. That idea that you could do that, that you could, by virtue of your own talent, by virtue of your own words — I was a budding writer who didn’t really know that that’s what I was going to do at that point. I still thought I was going to be a chemist of some sort.

But I think internally I knew that — or I was drawn to this idea of writing, this idea that you could communicate in such a sharp and penetrating way that no one would be able to deny you, and that you could do that as a Black person. Right? I mean, this is what Black excellence is about. That as a Black person in this country facing so many different disadvantages, that even in the face of all this darkness that you are going to shine.

And I think Jay-Z as a rapper, really more than anyone, kind of internalized and embodied those ideals — like that’s his gospel. Like, I’m going to continually raise the bar, whether it’s artistically, or professionally, or financially or even romantically.

[LAUGHS] Yeah, and he actually says, “Best rapper alive. Ask about me.” Wait.

Ask about it. Ask about me.

Ask about me.

I dropped that “Black Album.” Then I backed out it as the best rapper alive. You could ask about me.

And at some point, your relationship to this album has changed. I mean, you’re no longer a teenager in a Nissan Altima. Do you still feel the same way about this album? Or how do you feel about the music now, and the lyrics especially?

I think the thing that’s changed for me is now I’m more inclined to look at the system itself. Jay-Z put forward his own life story and his own example as a model. And I think that is fine to aspire to — and it’s what I aspired to. But it sort of elides the fact that maybe the system that you are doing battle with could change.

Mm. I think that being Black in America, sometimes there are things that dawn on you later. And it’s a journey. And you don’t understand everything that’s going on as a teenager the way you do when you’re older.

Yeah, completely. Thinking about last summer and seeing all the people that were calling for these big changes to how our society works, and how policing works, and how our corporate institutions work, I wish there had been more of a cultural conversation to help me understand that that double standard that I was held to as a teenager and as a young man was not OK. You know?

That that came from a deep flaw in our society that has created these persistent inequalities and injustices. And yeah, it’s OK to hold yourself to a higher standard and to want to achieve great things. But why do we have to have this world where only the Jay-Zs, only the Barack Obamas, only the Oprah Winfreys are the ones who make it to the top?

Why can’t you just be a regular person pursuing their dreams and be able to do that without threat of death or poverty? That’s the missing piece that I think I didn’t quite get when I was in high school. Chris Rock actually has a really great bit about this.

My house cost millions of dollars.

He talks about the neighborhood that he lives in in New Jersey and how he — it’s an incredibly wealthy neighborhood. His house cost millions of dollars. And there are only a few Black people in the neighborhood. And those Black people are like Mary J. Blige, Eddie Murphy, Jay-Z and himself. And his neighbor is a white guy who is a dentist.

He ain’t the best dentist in the world.

So to get into this neighborhood, they had to be the best in the world at what they do. And this white guy down the block, he’s just a dentist, and he’s not even the best dentist.

See, the Black man gotta fly to get something that the white man could walk to.

OK, so you didn’t become a pharmacist or a dentist, for that matter. But do you have any regrets about the path you pursued?

No. Because it wasn’t right for me. And that’s what I was missing in all those years when I was very narrowly focused in deciding on what the rest of my life was going to be at 17 — was, hey, there’s more to life than just doing what you think is going to get you the fancy job and the cash and the house. You have to find out who you are as a person. I did get to know myself a little better. I got to come into my own and realize that I’m a writer, and that’s what I love to do, and it wasn’t until I put away pharmacy that I — until I started to write and I started to pursue that as a career path. And thank God that I did.

Reggie, this was fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dodai. It was really fun going down memory lane with you.

All the way back to the yacht and the champagne.

Oh, my god, yes. Take me there now.

Hosted by Dodai Stewart

With Reggie Ugwu

Produced by Tally Abecassis and Elyssa Dudley

Edited by Phyllis Fletcher and Theo Balcomb

Engineered by Elisheba Ittoop

jay z yacht song

In 2003, Jay-Z announced he was retiring at 33 years old. He had several platinum records under his belt and a budding relationship with Beyoncé. Then, he released the album intended to be his last: “The Black Album.”

Reggie Ugwu, a Culture reporter for The New York Times, was a senior in high school when “The Black Album” came out, and it became the soundtrack of his life. He loved not just the music, but the message: that being indisputably excellent was the only way to make it.

But after the summer of 2020, as a global Black Lives Matter movement took off in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Reggie started to revisit the lessons of the album.

“There was something that was missing from my understanding of how the world worked and my place in it,” Reggie said in this episode.

Nearly 18 years later, Reggie reflects on “The Black Album” with Dodai Stewart, a deputy editor. Listen to their conversation.

In this podcast episode:

Dodai Stewart , a deputy editor for Narrative Projects at The New York Times.

Reggie Ugwu , a pop culture reporter for The Times.

Reggie Ugwu  is a pop culture reporter covering a range of subjects, including film, television, music and internet culture. Before joining The Times in 2017, he was a reporter for BuzzFeed News and Billboard magazine. More about Reggie Ugwu

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Jay Z

Legal battle over Jay Z's sampling on Big Pimpin' comes to head after eight years

Descendent of Egyptian songwriter Baligh Hamdy claims rapper and producer Timbaland sampled the 1960 song Khosara Khosara without proper licences

P lay a few seconds of the backing track for Big Pimpin’, and it might evoke scenes from the accompanying music video , of a younger Jay Z puffing a cigar, posing on a yacht flanked by bikini-clad women.

For Egyptians, however, and especially those of a certain age, the same few notes might conjure a different image, of Abdel Halim Hafez, the pouting boyish crooner whose songs and films epitomised Egypt’s cultural renaissance in the 1950s and 60s.

Hafez sung the original song, Khosara Khosara , in a 1960 film titled Fata Ahlami. Hafez and the composer of the song, Baligh Hamdy, are dead, but Hamdy’s heir has been suing Jay Z and his producer Timbaland since 2007, claiming that the song was used without the proper licenses.

After a judge’s ruling in a California court on 30 March, the almost eight-year legal battle is finally heading to trial, set for October. Regardless of the outcome, the case speaks to a set of overlapping debates about intellectual property, sampling in pop music and western artists’ use of Middle Eastern melodies.

Egyptian Singer Abdel Halim Hafez

The plaintiff and driving force behind the case is Osama Ahmed Fahmy, who says he is Baligh Hamdy’s heir. He claims that the record label, EMI Arabia, who acquired the rights from an Egyptian label, did not have the right to sublicense the song for use in Big Pimpin’.

Beyond the complex copyright issues, the case is also about cultural sensitivities. Fahmy’s lawsuit also argues that Jay Z and Timbaland reused Khosara Khosara in an offensive way that amount to a violation of the composer’s moral rights under Egyptian law.

“They used it with a song that even by Jay Z’s own admission is very vulgar and base,” said Fahmy’s lawyer, Keith Wesley, speaking by phone from Los Angeles. “That’s really why this is so significant to my client. They not only took music without paying. They’re using it in a song that is, frankly, disgusting.”

Through his lawyers, Fahmy has made the case that Jay Z’s lyrics are a distortion of the original sensibility of Khosara Khosara. A motion filed by the plaintiff in court this year takes issue with lyrics that, it is claimed, do not imply the respectful treatment of women.

“This case is a perfect example of the importance of the requirement that a copyright owner be afforded the opportunity to consider any potential sublicense of his copyright,” the motion says.

Years after the fact, Jay Z has suggested that the song no longer reflects his views on gender. “There’s a steady growth in the conversations that’s being had as it pertains to women, you know, as I grew,” he told an interviewer from US National Public Radio (NPR) in 2010.

Wael El-Mahallawy, the director of the music programme at the American University in Cairo said the matter of whether Jay Z violated cultural sensitivities in Egypt is a question that would split along generational lines.

“It gives it a new style, a new flavour. I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “It will make it more famous, more acceptable for young people.

“It’s not acceptable for these old guys. They won’t accept a new style, a new flavour of music.”

Big Pimpin’ is not the only song to sample Middle Eastern music in order to introduce different beats to western audiences. Madonna samples the Lebanese singer Fairuz singing Christian liturgy on Erotica.

The jagged strings in the Chemical Brothers’ 2005 song Galvanize are sampled from the Moroccan singer Najat Aatabou. Timbaland himself has produced a string of Middle Eastern-infused tracks .

Some argue the use of samples from the Arab world is a case of healthy cultural cross-pollination, but critics allege exploitation.

“To the extent that the song got its consumers to appreciate Abdel Halim it’s a useful global crossover,” said Ted Swedenburg, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas and a scholar on Middle Eastern popular music, referring to Big Pimpin’.

On the other hand, he said the song was a case of a rapper “escaping the punishing and very expensive regime of sampling in the west, so exploiting the apparent absence of copyright on an Abdel Halim song.”

Whatever the merits of the lawsuit, one consequence is that it will remind the public of the original source of the infectious, instantly recognisable hook in Jay Z’s hit.

“The better strategy, if you wanted to make the case for Abdel Halim, would be to accept that Big Pimpin’ is a great song, even if one doesn’t love the lyric,” said Swendenburg, “and to argue that what really makes it great is the Abdel Halim sample.”

  • Intellectual property
  • Middle East and north Africa

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Numb/Encore (feat. Linkin Park)

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jay z yacht song

This song for me is going through life, starting hard, finishing hard. Always living up to others expectations and losing feeling and your own self meaning because of it.

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I hate Jay Z but this is a pretty good song. Hat's off to this remix.

i love this remix &i also hate jay-z. but this song's grand, i definitely agree with the idea of it being about struggling through life.

"what the hell are you waiting for" I think this is simple, just to go for it. Do what you gotta do. Don't sit on your ass

Ok if u dont know your back ground to this song Encore By Jay-Z is that jay-z is talking about how he is the last of the brooklyn boys EG Tupac, Biggie, Jay-z. Tupac-deacsed Biggie-deacsed, Jay-z alive he wants every one to sing loud for him seeing as this could be the end soon

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Jay-Z’s Top 30 Songs on the Billboard Hot 100

H to the Izzo.

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Jay-Z

It’s certainly a feat when you’re one of the most successful hip-hop artists of all time. Since 1996, Jay-Z continues to leave his mark on the world, from hip-hop and beyond, by releasing material favored by the masses both as a soloist and collaborator to music’s biggest stars — not limited to Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, Kanye West and, of course, his wife Beyoncé.

In addition to his 13 studio albums, 24 Grammy awards and over 100 tracks that have landed on Billboard’s Hot 100, he launched Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995 and talent management company Roc Nation in 2008, and bought and rebranded streaming service Tidal in 2015. As the first hip-hop artist to join Forbes’ billionaires club, he also has a strong investment portfolio with stakes in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Uber, milk-alternative company Oatly and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty, among several others. It would seem that Jay wouldn’t have as much time to commit to music considering his many entrepreneurial endeavors — but rapper continues making waves in the industry, and likely isn’t stopping any time soon.

To celebrate his well-earned success, Billboard has put together a list of Mr. Carter’s 30 biggest hits on the Hot 100. Check out the ranking below.

Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods. Songs are ranked based on a formula blending performance, as outlined above.

Jay-Z, "Girls, Girls, Girls"

JAY-Z "Girls, Girls, Girls"

Chart Peak: 17, Peak Date: Dec. 12, 2001

With “Girls, Girls, Girls,” Hova introduces the world to his female encounters “across the globe.” The second single off his sixth studio album The Blueprint sat on the Hot 100 for 17 weeks, peaking at 17. Listen here .

Usher feat. Jay-Z, "Hot Tottie"

Chart Peak: 21, Peak Date: Oct. 30, 2010

Usher taps King Hov for “Hot Tottie,” whose title is a variation of the cold-weather-favorite alcoholic beverage hot toddy. The track from the deluxe edition of Usher’s fourth studio album, Raymond v. Raymond, is the duo’s only collaboration to chart on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z and Kanye West feat. Otis Redding, "Otis"

Chart Peak: 12, Peak Date: Aug. 13, 2011

Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” is sampled throughout Jay and Ye’s track named after the legendary blues singer. Though not the duo’s first collaboration, “Otis” does hail from their first collaborative album Watch the Throne — and peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100.  Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Show Me What You Got"

Jay-Z reminds us of what he’s got in the first single off Kingdom Come , which dropped three years after his previous solo studio album. “Show Me What You Got” charted on the Hot 100 for 15 weeks, peaking at No. 8. Listen here .

Jay-Z and Linkin Park, "Numb / Encore"

Chart Peak: 20, Peak Date: Feb. 12, 2005

Rock and hip-hop intertwine for a mash-up of Jay-Z’s “Encore” and Linkin Park’s “Numb,” off their wholly mash-up collaboration EP Collision Course . Originally created for the new concert show “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups,” the song became a crowd favorite, peaking at No. 20 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)"

Chart Peak: 15, Peak Date: Mar. 27, 1999

The hit Broadway musical Annie is to thank for the title and chorus of Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” — which became Jay-Z’s first Hot 100 top 20 as a soloist.  Listen here .

Jay-Z and T.I. feat. Lil Wayne & Kanye West, "Swagga Like Us"

Chart Peak: 5, Peak Date: Sept. 27, 2008

“Swagga Like Us” is the first and only time to bring together four hip-hop hitmakers: Jay-Z, T.I., Lil Wayne and Kanye West. With an addictive chorus by M.I.A., the quadruplet earned a Grammy for their performance, as well as a top 10 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. UGK, "Big Pimpin'"

JAY-Z ft. UGK "Big Pimpin'"

Chart Peak: 18, Peak Date: Jul. 8, 2000

With production from Timbaland, Jay-Z taps Southern duo UGK for his final single from Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter . Though “Big Pimpin'” never reached the Hot 100’s Top 10, it is a crowd favorite — and earned 20 total weeks on the chart. Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Change Clothes"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 10, Peak Date: Dec. 27, 2003

As the first single from Jay-Z’s The Black Album , “Change Clothes” became popular not only for Jay’s rhymes, but for The Neptunes’ production (and, of course, Pharrell’s distinguishable falsetto). “Change Clothes” became one of Jay’s more popular songs in the U.S. peaking at No. 10 on the Hot 100 and proved that Mr. Carter was back. Listen here .

Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z, "Deja Vu"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 4, Peak Date: Aug. 12, 2006

“I just make the hits, like a factory,” claimed Jay alongside Ms. B. It was a song, as like their first collaboration, “’03 Bonnie & Clyde,” that foreshadowed their power couple takeover of just about everything, including our Hot 100 chart. Although it debuted at No. 44, “Deja Vu” peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Big Sean, Jay-Z and Kanye West, "Clique"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 12, Peak Date: 12, Peak Date: Sept. 29, 2012

Jay disappeared as quickly as he appeared on this track with Kanye West and Big Sean. The rhymes were fast: a combination of boasts and shout-outs accompanied by menacing production. “We top of the totem pole,” Jay confidently claimed. It’s true: “Clique” peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z, "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)"

JAY-Z "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 11, Peak Date: Dec. 30, 2000

From its memorable hook (on point as always, Skateboard P) to Jay’s party-friendly rhymes, “I Just Wanna Love U” would eventually become a summertime jam (regardless of its October release). The first single from Jay’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia peaked at No. 11 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Mr. Hudson, "Young Forever"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 10, Peak Date: May 15, 2010

A reworking of Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” Jay-Z’s “Young Forever” was well-received when it dropped. Heavy radio coverage and strong digital downloads weren’t the only accomplishments the song would attain. The song peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100, and became Jay’s 17th top ten single. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Amil & Ja Rule, "Can I Get A…"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 19, Peak Date: Jan. 16, 1999

Although “Can I Get A…” appeared on Jay’s Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life album, this song is commonly associated with the first Rush Hour movie and its respective soundtrack. The beat for “Can I Get A…” was great, and Amil and Ja’s guest appearances were the icing to Jay’s cake. The 1998 classic single peaked at No. 19 on the Hot 100, becoming one of Jay’s most commercially successful singles at the time. Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Excuse Me Miss"

JAY-Z ft. Pharrell "Excuse Me Miss"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 4, Peak Date: Apr. 12, 2003

Another Jay and Neptunes hit, “Excuse Me Miss” contrasted significantly from the rapper’s previous work. The R&B-tinged production and Jay’s mature lyrical content, was much different than other women-based songs such as “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “I Just Wanna Love U.” Jay-Z’s growth worked in his favor: “Excuse Me Miss” peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Foxy Brown feat. Jay-Z, "I'll Be"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 7, Peak Date: Apr. 12, 1997

It was a great pairing: Foxy Brown, one of the best female rappers at the time, and Jay-Z, the man who would eventually become a hip-hop mogul. “I’ll Be” became a huge hit, peaking at No. 7 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 8, Peak Date: Oct. 20, 2001

“That’s the anthem, get your damn hands up!” “Izzo” was Jay’s song of triumph — its powerful production and memorable hook celebrating Jay and his accomplishments. The song has become one of Jay’s most popular singles, as well as a success on the Hot 100 charts, peaking at No. 8. Listen here .

R. Kelly feat. Jay-Z, "Fiesta (Remix)"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 6, Peak Date: Jun. 23, 2001

Jay-Z joins for a remix of R. Kelly’s track “Fiesta” — adding a slow-dance-esque production and his trademark bars. The song spent five weeks at number one on the U.S. R&B chart, and peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100.

Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z, "Drunk In Love"

Hot 100 Peak: No. 2, Peak Date: Feb. 15, 2014

In 2015, Bey and Jay earned Grammys for best R&B song and best R&B performance for their sensual and empowering collaboration “Drunk in Love.” The song, which some interpret as the husband/wife duo’s follow-up to their 2003 smash “Crazy in Love,” spent nearly half a year on the Hot 100.  Listen here .

Jay-Z, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 5, Peak Date: April 10, 2004

“Dirt Off Your Shoulder” became an anthem in 2004. It was the answer to any “negative” situation: failed a test? Brush your shoulders off. Spent too much money at the club? Brush your shoulders off. Being attacked by a rival candidate for the U.S. presidency? Brush your shoulders off (Kudos, President Obama ). “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” became one of Jay’s biggest singles to date, peaking at No. 5 on the Hot 100. Listen here .

Pharrell Williams feat. Jay-Z, "Frontin'"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 5, Peak Date: Sept. 20, 2003

Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z’s professional bromance dates back to 2006, from when working together on Hov’s The Dynasty: ROC La Familia lead single, “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me).” As like “I Just Wanna Love U,” “Frontin'” is yet another hit the duo pocketed. “Frontin'” was the 34th biggest selling single of 2003 in the U.S. Listen here .

Mariah Carey feat. Jay-Z, "Heartbreaker"

Mariah Carey, Jay-Z "Heartbreaker"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 1 (two weeks), Peak Date: Oct. 9, 1999

Jay-Z’s playful guest verse is the cherry on top of Mariah Carey’s addictive Rainbow lead single. The duo’s hit, which was built around a sample from Stacy Lattisaw’s “Attack of the Name Game,” claimed the No. 1 spot for two consecutive weeks. Listen here .

Kanye West and Jay-Z, "Ni**as in Paris"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 5, Peak Date: Jan. 7, 2012

“Ni**as in Paris” is the most hard-hitting song on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s collaborative album, Watch the Throne . Therefore it’s no surprise the Hit-Boy-produced song, which The Throne performed consecutively during their tour, more times with each stop, peaked in the top 5 tier on the Hot 100 chart. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Beyoncé, "03' Bonnie & Clyde"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 4, Peak Date: Dec. 28, 2002

“You ready B? Let’s go get ’em,” Jay-Z kicks off his first collaborative hit with his now wife, Beyoncé. “03 Bonnie & Clyde” is proof that the couple has been unstoppable from jump. Coincidentally, The Blueprint 2 hit was the first song that Kanye West produced for his close friend. Ye delivered a hit, built around Tupac’s “Me & My Girlfriend,” after Hov called him up and asked for the “ best beat you ever made .” Listen here .

Justin Timberlake feat. Jay-Z, "Suit & Tie"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 3, Peak Date: Oct. 3, 2009

Who better to step back into the music scene with after a six-year hiatus than with Jay-Z? The rapper spits his signature luxury rhymes on Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience comeback hit. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West, "Run This Town"

Kanye West, Jay-Z and Rihanna

Hot 100 Peak Position: 2, Peak Date: Oct. 3, 2009

The star power on the second single off The Blueprint 3 , turned the song into one of two of Jay-z’s top five hits as a lead artist. Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Justin Timberlake, "Holy Grail"

Chart Peak: 4, Peak Date: Sept. 21, 2013

Post Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience , this time Jay taps Justin for “Holy Grail” off the rapper’s his twelfth studio album Magna Carta Holy Grail . The duo’s second collaboration in less than a year peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100, and earned a whopping 27 total weeks on the chart. Listen here .

Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, "Umbrella"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 1 (seven weeks), Peak Date: June 9, 2007

Rihanna introduced her bad ass side with her boss man, Jay-Z, by her side. The Good Girl Gone Bad l ead single, produced by The-Dream, earned both Jay-Z and Rihanna another No. 1 hit. “Umbrella” was Rihanna’s 2nd No. 1, following “SOS” (2006), and Jay-Z’s third, following “Heartbreaker” (1999) and “Crazy In Love” (2003). Listen here .

Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 1 (five weeks), Peak Date: Nov. 28, 2009

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys turned an ode to their city into a national anthem. Their duet not only topped the top spot for five consecutive weeks but earned Jay-Z his only No. 1 as a lead artist. Listen here .

Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z, "Crazy In Love"

Beyoncé ft. JAY Z "Crazy In Love"

Hot 100 Peak Position: 1 (eight weeks), Peak Date: July 12, 2003

We dare you to not “aw” at the fact that Jay-Z’s top Hot 100 No. 1 is a collaborative song with Beyoncé. The power couple has been taking over the charts since “03′ Bonnie & Clyde,” their first collaborative hit. “Crazy In Love” topped the Hot 100 chart for eight consecutive weeks. Listen here .

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25 Music Videos With Rappers On Boats

Let's get weird and wavy.

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

Last week we showed off one hip-hop music video mainstay, the '64 Impala. Now, we're looking into boats. They've been all over rapper's videos, from Biz Markie in the '80s to Macklemore this year. And why not? Standing on top of a boat and rapping directly into the camera screams, "I'm a big deal," or in the words of The Lonely Island, "If you're on the shore, then you're sho' not me." Add bonus points if it's topped with a mass of big bootied females with little bikinis. Ignore the fact that most of these rappers don't actually own the vessels. Watch the art of water stunting with 25 Music Videos With Rappers on Boats.

RELATED: 25 Pictures of Rappers on Boats RELATED: Pictures of Rappers on Bicycles

Jeremih f/ Ludacris "I Like"

Not Available Interstitial

Ludacris has his product placement down, even on guest spots. Shilling liquor + chillin' on a boat = quintessential rap video. 

Rick Ross f/ French Montana "Straight Off the Boat"

Not Available Interstitial

When Rick Ross and French talk about straight off the boat, they're talking about bricks. When we talk about straight off the boat, we're talking about ourselves after a day of getting drunk, tubing and catching fish. How's that for real?

50 Cent "Just a Lil Bit"

In this video 50 goes down to a beach paradise with three video vixens to seduce and rob the unsuspecting, including an old dude on a boat. There's a hustler's ambition.

Kanye West f/ Young Jeezy "Amazing"

You can't hole yourself up in Hawaii without venturing out to the ocean. Kanye doesn't look too stoked to be on that boat, though. Maybe him and Drake's low-key rivalry is really about who can look like they're more miserable while doing fun things. 

P-Square f/ Rick Ross "Beautiful Onyinye"

P-Square is from Nigeria, but ask Ricky Rozay and the duo is from the country of Africa. He obviously didn't lead the geography class while working as a prison guard. 

Pusha T "Can I Live"

The best part of videos on boats? The women sure as hell aren't going to be wrapped up in sweaters.

T.I. f/ Lil Wayne "Wit Me"

Unfortunately, to get to the boat, you have to watch Lil Wayne and his stupid-ass bright Trukfit hat for a few minutes.

J. Cole f/ Trey Songz "Can't Get Enough"

Don't let your girl on board with J. Cole. He has a penchant for stealing  and a boat would only reduce the challenge. You should probably keep her away from Trey Songz, too. 

Theophilus London "I Stand Alone"

And the award for smallest boat in a rap video goes to Theophilus London. With all the traveling he does, we doubt he goes by dinghy often.

Rick Ross f/ Wale & Drake "Diced Pineapples"

Of course Drake doesn't get on the boat. That would be too fun. Singing alone on a cliff is a TDM (Total Drake Move). 

B.G. f/ Hot Boys and Big Tymers "Bling Bling"

Sorry, B.G., but the most memorable thing about this track is Lil Wayne. It introduced the world to a future icon and slang term for white people to ruin. 

Jay-Z "In My Lifetime"

Jay-Z couldn't pull the coolest boats early in his career, but that didn't last long. He and Bey could probably buy a Carnival Cruise ship, if they wanted to. 

Big Timers, Baby f/ Boo and Gotti "Oh Yeah!"

Nothing says big tyme like a boat with your group's name on it. Why they would take it to Alaska is beyond us. 

Mobb Deep f/ Nas "It's Mine"

The Mobb went into the deep blue sea. It seems right that they brought another one of Jay-Z's former foes with them. 

Rick Ross f/ Triple C's & Magazeen "Yacht Club Remix"

We like to imagine that Rick Ross is in a Maybach or on a boat at all times, just like he likes to imagine he was/is a coke dealer. 

Akon f/ Young Jeezy & Lil Wayne "I'm So Paid"

We still can't believe Akon being famous was a thing. Try to listen to any of his hits and tell us they aren't more dated than jokes about LeBron being unclutch. 

Flo Rida "Wild Ones"

What's more Florida than an airboat? Flo Rida blows hot air up people's asses in the club and in the swamp.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis "Can't Hold Us"

Nobody, even Macklemore, expected him to blow up like he did before "Thrift Shop" dropped. With his second Billboard-topping single, "Can't Hold Us", he showed he can play with the big kids of rap, boats and all.

2 Chainz "I'm Different"

Ain't nobody got time to actually put a boat in water. When Chainz says he's ridin' 30s, he's talking about 30-foot floaters.

Young Bleed f/ Master P and C-Loc "How Ya Do That"

Is that Deebo from "Friday" in the beginning of the video? Good luck getting past him and into Master P's party. Make 'em say ough!

Biz Markie "The Vapors"

Girls used to front on Biz and his crew before they made it. When the Juice Crew starting rapping on boats, the same honeys began to come around and get "the vapors."

Huff 'N Doback "Boats 'N Hoes"

The classic song and one of the highlights from Step Brothers. Also, highly offensive. We're still waiting on Prestige Worldwide's next video. 

Notorious B.I.G. "Hypnotize"

It's hard to watch anything other than Puff acting a fool beside Biggie. This is what Suge Knight was talking about at the '95 Source Awards . 

Jay-Z "Big Pimpin'"

Jay-Z didn't always have great style. It's hard to look bad on a yacht, but that bucket hat certainly isn't helping. Is he more embarrassed about that or the crass lyrics, which he admitted were harsh in a Wall Street Journal interview.  

The Lonely Island "I'm On a Boat"

The Lonely Island made fun of the nautical dick-swinging in rap videos by doing the only thing more obnoxious: yelling about it. Because just showing off the boat was much subtler.

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IMAGES

  1. Beyonce & Jay-Z: Yacht Lovers: Photo 2429575

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  2. Jay-Z And Beyonce Spotted On A Mega Yacht In Croatia 'Hov & Bey

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  3. Beyonce & Jay-Z: Yacht Lovers: Photo 2429578

    jay z yacht song

  4. Beyonce & Jay-Z Vacation On MASSIVE Super Yacht Costing $2 Million Per

    jay z yacht song

  5. Beyonce and Jay-Z relax onboard a yacht on the Amalfi Coast

    jay z yacht song

  6. Le yacht de Jay-Z

    jay z yacht song

COMMENTS

  1. JAY-Z

    Official music video for "Big Pimpin'" performed by JAY-Z. Listen to JAY-Z: https://JAY-Z.LNK.TO/JAYZ Follow JAY-Z:https://www.twitter.com/SChttps://www.face...

  2. Big Pimpin'

    Music video. "Big Pimpin' ft. UGK" on YouTube. " Big Pimpin' " is a song by American rapper Jay-Z. It was released on April 11, 2000 as the third and final single from his fourth studio album Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (1999). It features a guest appearance from Southern hip hop duo UGK, and production from Timbaland.

  3. JAY-Z

    Official music video for "Can I Get A..." performed by JAY-Z featuring Amil & Ja Rule. Listen to JAY-Z: https://JAY-Z.LNK.TO/JAYZ Follow JAY-Z:https://www.tw...

  4. JAY-Z

    And if so, well fuck it, fuck it. Because this water drown my family, this water mixed my blood. This water tells my story, this water knows it all. Go ahead and spill some champagne in the water ...

  5. Jay-Z: 50 Greatest Songs

    47. "Ain't No Nigga" feat. Foxy Brown (1996) Scott Gries/Getty Images/Universal Music. "Ain't No Nigga" might be the most shamelessly commercial track on Jay-Z's debut, Reasonable ...

  6. Songbook: How Jay-Z Created The 'Blueprint' For Rap's Greatest Of All

    As Jay-Z declared in 2001's "Breathe Easy," few rappers stack up when it comes to his flow, consistency, stories, charisma, and trendsetting powers — and he's backed up his claims for three decades on.. The Brooklyn rapper has cranked out chart-topping hits and street anthems across classic albums like The Blueprint and The Black Album, and he's inspired generations of rappers to take on his ...

  7. Oceans by Jay-Z

    Jay-Z explained the meaning behind the song in a video preview of the album. "It sounds like a celebration of where we are now on some big yacht, throwing champagne in the water," he told Rick Rubin. ... Holy Grail's title track" to be part of his and Jay-Z's joint album Watch The Throne. "[There were] no lyrics on 'Holy Grail' and I recorded ...

  8. Jay-Z's 'The Black Album' Reconsidered

    I remember the first song — Jay-Z songs that I was really obsessed with were "Money Ain't A Thang" and "Big Pimpin'" — ... On the yacht, on the boats with the girls in the bikinis ...

  9. Jay-Z's 20 best tracks

    11. Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator 99) (ft Big Jaz) (1999) Jay-Z perfected his craft rapping at high speed with his mentor Big Jaz; this is recalled on Nigga What, Nigga Who, which has the same ...

  10. Legal battle over Jay Z's sampling on Big Pimpin' comes to head after

    P lay a few seconds of the backing track for Big Pimpin', and it might evoke scenes from the accompanying music video, of a younger Jay Z puffing a cigar, posing on a yacht flanked by bikini ...

  11. Jay-Z

    And every second I waste is more than I can take. I've become so numb I can't feel you there. I've become so tired so much more aware. I'm becoming this all I want to do. Is be more like me and be less like you. Become soo numb. can I get an encore, do you want more, more, more, more. I've become so numb.

  12. Beyoncé And Jay-Z Live Large Aboard 450-Foot-Long Superyacht ...

    People notice when Jay-Z and Beyoncé go on vacation aboard the 450-foot-long, 67-foot-wide superyacht Flying Fox that was built by Lürssen in Germany, costs roughly $4 million per week to ...

  13. Jay-Z's Top 30 Songs That Are Billboard Hits

    Hot 100 Peak Position: 5, Peak Date: Sept. 20, 2003. Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z's professional bromance dates back to 2006, from when working together on Hov's The Dynasty: ROC La Familia ...

  14. 25 Music Videos With Rappers On Boats

    The Lonely Island "I'm On a Boat". The Lonely Island made fun of the nautical dick-swinging in rap videos by doing the only thing more obnoxious: yelling about it. Because just showing off the ...

  15. Jay Z & Beyoncé's 400 Million Super Yacht

    When Beyoncé and Jay Z go on a holiday, they go all out! Spending 4 Million a week to charter their 400 Million Dollar mega yacht the Flying Fox.🖤 Support u...

  16. List of songs recorded by Jay-Z

    The following is a list of songs by Jay-Z organized by alphabetical order. The songs on the list are all included in official label-released, albums, soundtracks and singles, but not white label or other non-label releases. Next to the song titles is the album, soundtrack or single on which it appears.

  17. Peek Inside The 350-Foot-Long $2 Million Per Week Superyacht That Jay Z

    Since yachts also provide significant security, privacy and safety in addition to every imaginable luxury, it's no surprise they escape to superyacht every year. ... Jay-Z and Beyonce attend ...

  18. Jay-Z

    Jay-Z Live à Paris Bercy, 18/10/2013

  19. Rap Songs About Yachts

    Rap Songs About Yachts: Sailing Through the Waves of Luxury in 2024. ... Artists like Rick Ross, Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, and Jay-Z have embraced yacht imagery in their music, allowing listeners to embark on a journey through the seas of opulence. These songs not only showcase the artists' affinity for the finer things in life but also ...

  20. JAY-Z & Linkin Park

    [Chorus: Chester Bennington & Jay-Z] I've become so numb, I can't feel you there Become so tired, so much more aware I'm becoming this, all I want to do Is be more like me and be less like you I ...

  21. Beyonce and Jay-Z Hit Croatia for Mega Yacht Family Vacay

    Beyonce and Jay-Z are doing their own version of "The Love Boat" -- sailing the high seas through Europe ... this after setting the music world on fire.SUBSC...

  22. JAY-Z

    Since 1996, 21-time GRAMMY award-winner, Shawn "JAY-Z" Carter has been a dominant force in popular culture. With multiple businesses and accolades across the various entertainment and lifestyle ...

  23. Jay Z & Beyonce's $400 Million Yacht

    When Beyoncé and Jay Z go on a holiday, they go all out! They spent 4 Million a week to charter their 400 Million Dollar mega yacht the Flying Fox.Subscribe ...