Jay-Z’s Roc Nation has today expanded its ever-growing empire into, and this is not a typo, the world of country music, putting down roots in Nashville through a publishing partnership with Warner/Chappell Music, the music publishing arm of Warner Music Group (WMG). The two companies have created Rhythm House, a music writing and publishing venture with veteran Nashville writer and producer Jesse Frasure.
The move is a “natural extension of the relationship we started so many years ago,” Jay Brown, Roc Nation President said, with WMG and Roc Nation first inking a deal back in 2013. He continued, “There is nothing like working with the right individuals, at the right time, forming the right partnership.”
While this collaboration combines my two favourite genres from a business perspective, I understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean rap/country collaborations. I think for both country and hip-hop fans’ sake that the genres will remain their own separate entities. Country music already has enough problems with ‘hick-hop,’ which is regarded mostly as just an unfortunate hiccup and we’re unlikely to see too many established rappers collaborate with country musicians any time soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3htOCjafTc
Probably because of this. Burn this.
It’s more than likely that Roc Nation will instead continue to grow and build subdivisions in almost every area of entertainment. Rhythm House and the Nashville division is Roc Nation’s second major expansion this month. Earlier this month Roc Nation put forth Roc Nation Latino, naming singer, songwriter and actor Romeo Santos as its CEO.
Roc Nation not only specialises in music, it also has a sports management division under the name Roc Nation Sports, with one of the NBA’s top three stars in Kevin Durant presently employing their services along with several other high-profile athletes and also has a partnership with Three Six Zero Entertainment, which represent clients in television and literary arts.
Roc Nation continues to grow and conquer all aspects of entertainment and arts and the label seems yet to flop on any of their recent ventures, although I can tell you already country fans are going to hate Tidal.
Image: Roc Nation
DJ Khaled is releasing his album Major Key soon, and one of the biggest rumoured highlights has been a track featuring Jay Z. Well, last night, about the same time as the BET awards wrapped up, Khaled dropped the track and visuals for I Got The Keys.
Khaled says one of the keys to success is to surround yourself with talent. His epic Snapchats are living proof that he lives by these keys as is this new track, which features both Jay-Z and Future.
The video premiered on Jay-Z’s Tidal, even though DJ Khaled and Future are both associated with Apple Music. The track is produced by Southside, Jake One, and G-Coup (so what’s Dj Khaled’s role?).
The black-and-white video clip shows Khaled and his crew battle prison guards while his Jay-Z and Future rap along dressed in suits. Khaled’s crew features cameos from some of the biggest names in hip-hop, including Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Fabolous, A$AP Ferg, Busta Rhymes, Swizz Beatz and Yo Gotti.
Just has Future promised, Jay-Z absolutely annihilates this track, I’ve played it back numerous times and am still thoroughly impressed with Jay-Z’s lyrics.
Special Cloth Alert…new jay z record gone f$ck da Summer up
— FUTURE/FREEBANDZ (@1future) May 14, 2016
Jigga is going very very very Krazy in a major way…ask @djkhaled
— FUTURE/FREEBANDZ (@1future) May 14, 2016
Marcy Projects flow..ill
— FUTURE/FREEBANDZ (@1future) May 14, 2016
I Got The Keys follows For Free, featuring Drake, which dropped earlier this month. The album Major Key is set to be released July 29. Hopefully, we can look forward to less teasing and more dope tracks like this one.
Image: 2dopeboyz
With Jay-Z’s classic album Reasonable Doubt turning 20 just days ago, there have been a number of special events commemorating its release. One was the announcement of plans for a pop-up shop which recreates the look of the apartment Jay-Z called home during the 1990s. Now, to add to the celebrationa, his streaming company Tidal has decided to release an exclusive documentary honouring the release of this watershed rap record even further.
Titled RD:20, the 35-minute long documentary is directed by Scheme Engine and depicts Jay’s rise, the album’s creation and the legacy it has left behind. Split into sections named after tracks from the album, including Politics As Usual, Friend or Foe, Dead Presidents II, this is sure to be one thorough look into an album that launched the career of one of hip-hop’s most iconic artists.
The documentary features interviews with some of the key figures in Jay-Z’s career such as DJ Premier, DJ Clark Kent, Ski, Kareem “Biggs” Burke (co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records), Memphis Bleek and album cover photographer Jonathan Mannion, all of them providing unprecedented insight into the story behind Reasonable Doubt and making RD:20 one of the most comprehensive looks into a hip-hop album to date.
On top of that, viewers even get some live footage of Jay performing songs with a live band in the studio with Vic Mensa and Jay Electronica appearing as members of the audience.
If you don’t have Tidal, there’s still hope! Free trials are still available, so check out the trailer below and get on it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNIgwqv8_0
For further reading, check out our Flashback Friday featuring Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt
Image: DJ Booth
This week saw the 20th anniversary of Jay Z‘s groundbreaking debut album Reasonable Doubt. The start of everything for young Hov, it was the foundation for what eventually became one of the most important artists in hip-hop history, and subsequently the music industry as a whole.
Jay Z’s history as a street dealer has been well documented in his own stories, and now comes a tale proving that the hustle may not have been entirely left behind when he first entered the music industry. In an interview with Complex, an engineer named Dexter Thibou who was assisting at D&D Studios while Jay’s iconic Reasonable Doubt was being recorded has spilled some interesting details about the sessions. It’s quite bizarre to have this kind of insight into what Jay Z’s life was like at that point in history, but it sure is fascinating – especially considering the pop up Reasonable Doubt store/exhibition thingy happening in NYC right now, involving a to-scale recreation of the apartment he lived in throughout the 1990s.
One of the biggest reveals of the interview came by way of a reminder that he hadn’t quite left the streets behind when he first walked into the studio. For instance, he and Dame Dash never gave Thibou a cheque, favouring dodgy brown paper bags of small bills instead:
“…I didn’t get a paper check from Roc-A-Fella until the second album; they always paid in cash. Always. Dame would piss me off because he’d always pay me in fives and tens. They’d let the bill run up and it’d be like, “OK, Dex, you gotta collect $3,500 from Dame tonight.” Dame be like, “I got you,” and then he’d come back with fives and tens and ones—maybe a twenty. Then I gotta count all this money. Sometimes he’d give it to me in an envelope or a brown bag, but I remember one time he had on these cargo pants and he was pulling money outta the fucking pockets in his cargo pants, and I’m like, “What the fuck is all this?” And he’s like, “Yo, it’s all there.” I’m like, “Nah, you gotta stay here and watch me count this.” But he was never short. I’ve been shorted on a lot of bills, but never from Roc-A-Fella, never from Dame.”
So he might have, uh, his own way of getting things done, but apparently Jay Z was exceedingly patient and “mellow”, and very much a perfectionist.
“I never saw Jay get frustrated. Mary J. Blige showed up late one night and didn’t want to lay down her vocals [for Can’t Knock the Hustle]—I think she was nervous because there were so many people there—and Jay didn’t get frustrated. He was more disappointed. Jay doesn’t show frustration. He’s so cool and mellow with his shit, it’s kinda unreal. I’ve never seen him get mad or yell at nobody…
Jay was just pristine with his shit. There’s just no other way to say it. He couldn’t afford not to—it was coming out of his pocket. This was his last straw. He’d been turned down by everybody, and back then, nobody was really loving Jay. You know? They was making fun of him, calling him ugly and all this other shit. And he was doing it by himself. Odds are stacked against him and this is the last one.”
Oh, and apparently he is very, very good at dice:
“Jay is a wizard with them dice, yo. I’ve seen him send people to the ATM three times in a night. He’s hot hands with that shit. I would not roll dice with Jay Z ever. He gonna take everything from you.”
Duly noted: do not play dice with Jay Z.
Well. Twenty years on from the release of Reasonable Doubt and Jay Z is still on top of the game, so we all know how that turned out. Read our Flashback Friday feature on the game-changing album.
Image: Complex
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_DLD7OMUns]
On June 25, Jay-Z released debut album Reasonable Doubt and launched the career of a man who has now become, without question, one of the single greatest hip-hop musicians to have ever lived. To celebrate the anniversary and the album’s enduring legacy amongst hip hop culture, Roc-A-Fella co-founder Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke recently spoke to Billboard to reveal plans for a pop-up shop recreating the look of the Brooklyn apartment in which Jay-Z lived during the 1990s.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3fif3OCYc4]
In partnership with Los Angeles’ APT.4B, Burke revealed to Billboard that the pop-up shop will sell Reasonable Doubt t-shirts, cassette tapes, hats and more, while curating a unique experience for fans of the enormously talented and popular Brooklyn rapper. Billed also as a showcase opportunity for Burke’s 4th of November clothing line, the Jay-Z curated event will feature exclusive images from Jay-Z’s life before Reasonable Doubt being released, largely unseen by fans until now.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BCsxQg3NE4]
In addition, Reasonable Doubt themed emojis have been created for the event, which attendees will have an opportunity to take photographs with. The pop-up opens on June 25, the official 20th anniversary of the album, and will run through until the end of July.
Images via Billboard and Jay-Z
Milan Fashion Week is in full swing and already we have seen Gucci bum-bags, Fenti bucket hats and gold medallions, all styles we could see rappers from Charlie Threads to Earl Sweatshirt sporting. But what are the rappers wearing these days? Would they be interested in Fenti hats?
I always consider Adidas the first hip-hop clothing range; going all the way back to when hip-hop royalty Run DMC signed a million dollar deal with the company. They were the first non-athletes to obtain a sneaker deal and potentially pave the way for others in the hip-hop game to either start their own clothing ranges or get similar sponsorships.
Since then, it almost seems as if almost every rapper has had their own clothing line. So does Jay-Z only wear Rocawear? And Tyga only wear Last Kings? Or is everyone taking the Biggie Smalls route and still rocking Versace everything?
I have never worn anything that has been featured in a fashion show, one quick look at my beaten up brown leather jacket will prove I have no diversity in that department, but I have worn my fair share of clothes from the world of hip-hop fashion (although it has been some time since I rocked a fresh Sean John tracksuit with my Phat Farm polo to a basketball game). Hip-hop and fashion are so intertwined now that some of the biggest names with their own clothing lines even have their own fashion shows (well maybe just Kanye’s and his Yeezy line of couture.
With that in mind, I decided to take a look at what rappers are really wearing, or what they think we should be wearing. Here are the ten best hip-hop clothing lines of all time. In no particular order:
Image: Ernie Paniccioli from Free Stylin’
Naughty Gear
Naughty Gear was one of the very first rapper clothing lines, put out by the boys from Naughty By Nature. With an awesome group name like that, you’re almost destined to sell at least a million t-shirts just by putting your own logo on it. They did a lot more than sell a few shirts too, they had their own clothing shop in Newark, New Jersey back in the day which also sold other street brands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_XFdU3n7m4
Wu Wear
My affinity for everything Wu-Tang Clan certainly didn’t stop at their music. I always wanted to be a member of the Clan and did my best to emulate their dress style. It was pretty easy because Oli “Power” Grant, the Clan’s executive producer, had been putting out Wu Wear since the early ‘90s. I still have one Wu Wear jacket left, although my housemate thinks it’s her ‘dog-walking jacket’, almost criminally having no idea of the rarity of such a garment.
Some of the Wu-Tang members even toyed with the idea of their own Wu Wear side branches. “I’m going to bring out Dirty Wear,” Ol’ Dirty Bastard once said. “A set of ready-worn clothes: ‘Dirty Wear, for the girl who likes to wear her panties three days in a row.’” (your move, ladies)
Rihanna wearing a pink Sean John tracksuit.
Sean John
Wearing warm-up tracksuits from Sean John on the outdoor basketball courts in the early 2000s was the epitome of style and ‘cash’. Among all the Russell Athletics, Adidas, Nike, tracksuits rolling up to the courts, I always felt way fresher and got more comments on my sand-coloured velour tracksuit. However, it seemed as the brand gained popularity, or Puff Daddy got too snobby, the price and the style of the clothing skyrocketed up and over mere teenagers shooting hoops. I never replaced that tracksuit, and have never felt as fresh.
Image: swaggerareus.com
Billionaire Boys Club
In 2005 Pharrell Williams was named Best Dressed Man by Esquire, coincidentally or not the same year he launched Billionaire Boys Club. Best Dressed Man is a hell of a resume for someone looking to start their clothing line, but Pharrell didn’t just use this to launch and line and have his name attached to it for a quick pay check. He is one of the most dedicated CEOs in the game and he has been able to keep Billionaire Boys Club relevant with current street trends.
Image: highsnobiety.com
I have to put Kanye on this list, if not for the simple fact that I just don’t get it. The shoes look like socks, and his fashion show looks like it was from a runway in Tatooine. Whether or not Kanye is responsible for men being able to wear skinny jeans or not though, I fail to understand the hype behind this line. I know it sounds like I am being negative but perhaps being unable to afford soled socks might be the reason.
Many people question the frankly ludicrous price of Yeezy shoes, all that money for something that would barely even be eye-catching without his name attached to it. You could possibly chalk it up to graffiti culture, something also intertwined with hip-hop since its beginnings, is responsible for ‘basic’ athletic shoes coming into style, Kanye picking up on that ‘basic’ element and running all the way to the bank with it..
Image: XXL
G-Unit
An absolute crowd favourite on free dress days at school was anything and everything with G-Unit on it. The brand first became a force to be reckoned with when a top-of-his-game 50 Cent teamed up with Marc Ecko, founder of Ecko Unlimited, to create some decent clothing.
The down fall of this range was definitely the G-Unit part, Ecko was already one of the better street wear brands out there but the G-Unit range always felt like rip off Ecko gear. I’m not exactly sure about how well the brand did here in Australia as it was always one of the more rackable clothing ranges out there. It seemed like everyone who wore G-Unit stole it from Myers Chadstone.
Image: hypebeast
Play Cloths
The inspiration for Pusha T’s Play Cloths were the clothes that kids are allowed to wear when they get home from school and were granted permission to play outside, especially with the brand’s bright colours on black and white. Much of the clothing I owned that has long been eaten away by moths had this feel to them.
Pusha T probably has a lot on his plate now that he is president of G.O.O.D. Music, but I imagine his brand will continue to grow along with his influence in G.O.O.D. Music.
Image: Getty Images
Phat Farm
While Russell Simmons isn’t a ‘rapper’, he is very much responsible for a lot of hip-hop music. He is the co-founder of Def Jam Records and his brother is Reverend Run of the aforementioned Run DMC. I had a few Phat Farm polos back in the day, but what I really wanted my whole life was a Phat Farm bomber jacket. I had forgotten this dream, but it has been reunited with my hip pocket and I will hopefully have one by the time this article is published. ‘Nuff said.
Image: CSS Design Awards
Rocawear
Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella practically owned every aspect of the game in the early 2000s, so it was only natural that he and co-conspirator Dame Dash should have their own clothing range to try and conquer the fashion world as well. Much of it might look positively outlandish by today’s standards (Rocawear selling like hotcakes in a time when baggy was always better) but so many kids I played basketball with ran Rocawear apparel, especially the jeans. I wasn’t much of a jeans man back then so I never copped a pair.
Rocawear has fallen off a little since its halcyon days, but they teamed with Pharrell’s Billionaire Boys Club back in 2011 and continue to be a multi-million dollar venture even today.
Nsync rocking FUBU – Image: 29secrets
FUBU
“For Us By Us” if you were wondering. I was far too young for this brand, it had come and gone before I even knew of the concept of pocket money, but it was one of the hugest selling hip-hop brands for a long, long time. FUBU was hounded by Daymond John, J. Alexander Martin, Keith Perrin and Carlton Brown who had a line of hats made in John’s house in Queens. According to CNBC, “During his off hours, John would hit music video sets and try to coax rappers to wear FUBU apparel in the shoot.”
Of those rappers donning the brand, Brand Nubian wore FUBU in one of their videos, Ol’ Dirty Bastard famously wore it in a Mariah Carey video, Busta Rhymes wore it on one of his videos too, and LL Cool J wore FUBU in the Hey Lover video. All this exposure made FUBU one of the most sought after hip-hop brands of the period. LL eventually became the ambassador for FUBU and with the help of John was even able to wear a FUBU hat during a Gap commercial – unbeknownst to the executives at Gap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3L04ry7a4o
These are just some of history’s best rapper clothing lines, and while the early 2000s was its zenith, there are so many more. With artists now all but forced to think outside the box and beyond selling just their music in the digital era, we will probably continue to see hip-hop clothing on the shelves (or ripped off at Vic Markets and the like).
Maybe next year in Milan we might finally see a rapper-designed outfit at Fashion Week. Surely Kanye’s not the only one who can crack the high fashion market?
Image: Prime Source Productions
Aesop Rock turns 40 years old today, and Kanye West turns 39 on Thursday. Pusha T turned 39 last month, too. They’ve all released music this year. All of it has been incredible; fresh, real, lauded by fans across the globe.
Rappers, much like pop and certainly electronic artists, are seemingly getting younger every day, with many emerging artists too young to legally drink in many countries. Vic Mensa has the year “1993” tattooed across his stomach, while many of his contemporaries like Vince Staples, Chance the Rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, Rae Sremmurd, Raury, Casey Veggies, Joey Badass, Little Simz, Bishop Nehru and plenty more are the same age or younger. Hip-hop has always been youth-focused, both from the artist and audience’s perspective – but nowadays that’s changing.
Vic Mensa, 22. Image: Clash
It’s interesting to see the direction hip-hop goes in when rappers age. Almost every rapper started out as young teens, and those emerging into mainstream fame are usually around 18-20. However, it’s the kind of music which typically has to change with age; people at 40 are different to who they are at 20. Like with anything else, if they acted or spoke in the same way, it would feel stale, desperate, and, well, old.
Today there are so many older rappers who are just as fiery, electrifying and relevant as ever. Although his latest album was admittedly sub par, at 46 years old, Jay Z‘s two very recent features on tracks from Pusha T (39) and Fat Joe (45) and Remy Ma (36) are his best in years. At 51, Dr Dre‘s Compton was a masterpiece, while Run The Jewels (both 40) have released two of the most important albums of the past decade – with a third undoubtedly on the way soon, to give a handful of examples.
It’s interesting and kind of weird that forty seems to be such a big deal for many rappers, although I suppose the same can be said for anyone, and that it’s just more noticeable in hip-hop, where your musical output is often very specifically grounded in who you are at that time in your life. Like I said, rappers can’t spend twenty or thirty years rapping about the same shit. Not only is this boring on a musical level, but it becomes disingenuous and false.
In an interview on his 40th birthday, Nas described it as “incredible.” “I was always this dude,” he responded to a question about what’s changed. “When you’re young and you on fire, there’s nothing like that feeling. Where I’m at now is a more relaxed place, but I think it’s still in me when I need to get crazy.” He went on to say that it wasn’t so much that his music is more cautious or reserved, but that, “The speed changes. You have to adjust your life, you got new things in your life, you become more of a businessman, you become a father, that matters, that weighs in.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=210&v=MnnZk86jme8
Similarly, 50 Cent addressed the big day last year in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel noted that his music had changed, to which 50 replied, “I gotta work on it. Sometimes when I write things, it’s where I’m at right now. And it’s like, ‘no, that makes sense, take that out.’ You can’t have maturity in your music.” This is an incredibly interesting, and rather wise comment coming from someone like 50 and the type of rap he’s put out.
Rappers often use age as a way to reflect, a la Jay and Push on the fantastic new single Drug Dealers Anonymous. Many others shift their focus to other areas, like film, the recording industry, labels and more, like Jay Z, Ice Cube, Puffy, Eminem and Dr Dre. Others collaborate with younger artists, not necessarily within hip-hop, in a way that keeps their output new and exciting – MF DOOM‘s 45 and he just dropped one of the coolest verses this year on the new Avalanches track, while Raekwon (46) fits perfectly on Flume‘s new album, more than twice the age of the other two rappers featured, Mensa and Staples, both 22.
But what about the rappers who have found themselves in a renaissance at that age? How do you explain it in a world where the young are the most powerful? Or, more importantly, why does it need to be explained?
It’s remarkable that in a world so heavily populated by teenagers, older rappers can come out and not only produce phenomenal new, incensed, powerful music, but receive the praise and attention they deserve.
Pitchfork set the scene well in a 2014 feature on Run The Jewels: “It’s October 2014 and, in the upside-down free-for-all that is modern popular music, one of the hottest hip-hop duos in the United States is made up of a pair of 39-year-olds who’ve banked off interstitial cartoon music for a rare late-period career renaissance.” Around the same time, El told Rolling Stone that “There’s really no fucking way that you’d ever think, ‘I’m gonna make my best friend at 35,” a statement which could no doubt be repeated for music.
When Aesop Rock rock was asked to describe his new album to The Source, he had this to say: “The Impossible Kid is me closing in on 40 and just going over it all. It feels sorta reflective in the sense of going through some childhood memories, some family stuff, some friend stuff, some music stuff, some moments of being baffled by the youth of today, and just coping with getting older.
“I kinda feel like turning 40 is a very specific thing in our society. It somehow holds more weight than any other age, even though in some ways it’s pretty arbitrary. For whatever reason, it’s the age that we are officially old. Maybe because if we’re lucky, it’s the halfway point. In your 30s, you can kinda still pretend to be young, but there’s not much pretending at 40. It’s the age that looms more than any other. So yeah, this is the sound of me sliding into 40.”
The point of this is just to note that the ‘ageing rapper’ is no longer considered a death sentence. Hip-hop has traditionally focused heavily on youth, in terms of artists, subject matter and intended audience – but none of this is necessarily true today.
50 Cent said there cannot be maturity in music, and while this makes sense for him and his music personally, as a whole I disagree; it just depends on context. Growing up doesn’t necessarily make them softer or more boring or anything like that – you can hardly say Pusha T or Dr Dre are making the hip-hop equivalent of dad rock – it’s just that the game changes, as Nas said. You grow, you have a family, a business, different ambitions and priorities. Your life changes, so your music changes. Not for better or worse; it just grows, like you.
Image: PMCaregivers
Yesterday, Pusha T today released an incredible new track, Drug Dealers Anonymous featuring Jay Z. It’s a brilliant collaboration; dark, ominous and set to a woozy instrumental.
As the title suggests, much of the track details their histories as drug dealers, an interesting slice of retrospective pie from the presidents of Tidal and G.O.O.D Music.
But that wasn’t all they spoke about on the track. Now, Pusha has taken to lyrics website Genius to annotate some of his own bars, as well as Jay Z’s.
They’re surprisingly detailed and remarkably insightful, offering an honest explanation behind a number of crucial lines.
Here they all are:
Here, Push talks up his favourite lines on Jay Z’s verse. And for good damn reason, too.
This and the above annotations display an incredible dedication and passion for fashion, much like Kanye. His intimate knowledge of Valentino, Gucci and beyond is clear; I wonder if he’ll follow in Kanye’s footsteps and create his own brand of designer gear.
I love that he mentioned that he’s basically just a big rap fan – even more so after seeing the recent footage of him squealing over scoring an Iverson autograph and seeing him go full fanboy.
We feel you, Push. Radiohead feels you too.
Listen to the song here:
And check out the rest of Pusha’s many Genius annotations here.
Drug Dealers Anonymous will feature on Pusha T’s upcoming album King Push, which we can only hope will drop real soon.
Image: Hypebeast
President of G.O.O.D Music Pusha T has unveiled the first new track from his upcoming album King Push, titled Drug Dealers Anonymous ft Jay Z. It’s available now to listen to via Tidal and I highly recommend you spin it right now:
It’s slinky, it’s slick, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from a collaboration between the Push and Hov (which is great, considering ‘exactly what you might expect from a Hov/Kanye/Drake collab’ didn’t exactly turn out quite so well.) The wavy production sets a woozy atmosphere, making way for the two kings gathering around the fire and sharing tales of old. They might be hip-hop gods right now, but they were once both street peddling drug dealers, and they both got their start by rapping about it. Pusha raps more about coke than anything else, and Jay’s come-up as a crack dealer is one of the most well-documented autobiographical stories in the game.
The pair trade verses which detail their own stories in a way that feels a lot steelier and multidimensional than I expected. While this is obviously far from the first time we’ve heard either of them reference their past, not even Jay feels stale; if anything, it’s revitalising, and no doubt one of the realest drug tracks we’ve heard them on in years.
This also marks Jay Z’s second featured verse in recent weeks, following on from his fiery bars on the remix to Fat Joe and Remy Ma‘s All The Way Up. Both verses have absolutely been his best in years, it’s great to see him return to form after a questionable, if not downright boring output throughout the past couple of years.
Update: Read Pusha T’s annotations of Drug Dealers Anonymous lyrics on Genius.
King Push was preceded by King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, which was released back in January (read our review here). We’ll keep you updated on album details as they unfold. If this single is anything to go by, King Push is set to become yet another excellent hip-hop release for a year already crammed with stellar bars.
Image: Instagram
Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s All The Way Up signalled the return of two of New York’s finest. The track has fast become a bonafide hit, dominating the airwaves and heard throughout clubs across the States. It didn’t look like the track could get any bigger until today, when the rumoured Jay Z remix debuted on Tidal.
This is Jay’s first official verse of 2016, not counting his meagre input on the original version of Drake‘s Pop Style, and his first feature since appearing on DJ Khaled‘s 2015 track They Don’t Love You No More.
Jay’s output has been minimal of late, and his quality of bars questionable (Magna Carter Holy Grail is a mess), but thankfully Hov comes through with one of his best verses in years on this remix. In obvous, well-played response to all of Beyonce’s allegations on Lemonade, here he opens up about his marriage and apparent infidelity right from the get go. “You know you made it when the fact your marriage made it is worth millions,” before going on to say “Lemonade is a popular drink and still is.” Mic drop.
He goes on to mention everything from his signature golden Ace of Spade champagne, to describing his daughter Blue in a bathtub filled with gold, aka the famous Tupac photo. The Jigga Man then takes shots at the haters and those who never give him credit for his business endeavours while bragging about Tidal, going so far as to mention that he’s got his hot hands safely tightened around Prince‘s master tapes. Ouch. Too soon. He ends on a line about elevators, a clever line with a double meaning; he referenced Prince’s death, claiming that it won’t tarnish his reputation or legacy, while also reminding us of the 2014 incident when Solange attacked Jay in an elevator.
Hearing Jay on track is one thing, but hearing him rap with such fire is exactly what you want to from one of the greatest. Rumours are circling he and wife Beyonce have finished their duet album, part of what’s looking to be a long-running and well-marketed moneymaking opus, and if he sounds half as invigorated as he does on this remix, we might just get the old Jay back and another classic release.
Image: RapDose