![]() ![]() ![]() But on that spring 2016 night in downtown Los Angeles, JAY witnessed a peer, one of the few in America who understands what it’s like to be that famous for that long, walk away from the game he changed in that manner. and Michael Jordan, to carve their own places in history. Both JAY and Bryant escaped the shadows of their larger-than-life predecessors, The Notorious B.I.G. A day later, the Charlotte Hornets drafted a 17-year-old Bryant, only to send him to Los Angeles in return for Vlade Divac. Reasonable Doubt, the corner-boy manifesto and classic hip-hop debut, arrived on June 25, 1996. But it spared JAY-Z.īryant and JAY, despite nine years separating them, came into the public’s eye together. Rap was never given the chance to heal from those wounds - Biggie, Tupac - it helped create. With his wife, Beyoncé, and his sister-in-law, Solange, using their last albums for their most personal work, it’s no surprise 4:44 unmasks itself as JAY at his emotional and creative zenith. The desire has been for him to curb the flaunting of luxuries and come with the real on what it’s like to be one of the most successful people in the world - and also one of its most haunted.īut the writing had been on the wall. It’s the project fans and critics have clamored for, for years: the authentic Jay Z. Off the rip, though, this is the greatest rapper of all time stripping himself down to essentials. Yet, where 4:44 will land in the rankings of JAY-Z’s catalog is a question better left for time. But in the end it is JAY’s inward glimpse of himself - the man he was, the man he’s become, the man he grew to partially hate - that separates this album from his previous bodies of work. Without No I.D.’s soulful backdrops (inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Kool & The Gang and more), 4:44 might lack the emotional connection it not only thrives on but quite literally survives on. No I.D.’s music is more than just “beats,” or instrumentals. Ernest “No I.D.” Wilson, who produced JAY’s 2009 “ Run This Town” and “ Death of Autotune,” as well as 2007’s “ Success,” among others, is the album’s lone producer, and he is irreplaceable. The 10-track 4:44 is the most emotionally taxing project of JAY’s ( he’s back to all caps) career. But for one night, the music universe revolved around JAY-Z, the sport’s finest elder statesman, with the release of his 13th studio album, 4:44. ![]() 3 for a fourth week straight with “DAMN.” DJ Khaled, whose “Grateful” was No. ![]() 2.Īlso this week, Kendrick Lamar holds at No. (Those streams include Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon and most other major digital outlets, with a notable exception: Spotify.) All told, “4:44” had the equivalent of 262,000 album sales in its second week, more than triple that of its closest competitor, “Issa Album” (Epic) by the rapper 21 Savage of Atlanta, whose 77,000 equivalents landed him at No. 1 with ease, with 174,000 copies sold as a full album and 122 million streams in the United States, according to Nielsen. Yet “4:44” - released by another of Jay-Z’s companies, Roc Nation - shot to No. 1, but without its first-week momentum, an opening at the top looked like a long shot. When “4:44” was released widely last week, it joined the race for No. Last week, it seemed pretty likely that the rapper-mogul would make a soft landing on the Billboard album chart with his latest release, “4:44.” In its first week out, “4:44” was streaming only on Tidal, Jay-Z’s own digital service, and the company withheld data from Nielsen, and thus from chart consideration. ![]()
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