Even though it’s only 36 minutes long, 4:44 is the first JAY-Z album where you’re hanging on every single word from start to finish, because the words have about four times as many meanings as they did on any of his dozen solo albums prior. On the amazing “Moonlight”, he brings up Lauryn Hill’s tax evasion as Kendrick Lamar once invoked for Wesley Snipes, as the “Fu-Gee-La” beat is interpolated behind him, with another verbal in-joke about black people being “stuck in La La Land” to play off the Oscar metaphor of the song title. To be clear, JAY-Z examines wealth under every lens on 4:44: race (the mogul longs for the gentrified Property That Got Away on “The Story of O.J.”), posthumous exploitation (Prince’s estate gets theirs on “Caught Their Eyes”), and his own posthumous funds (the self-explanatory “Legacy”). 4:44, amazingly enough, is an entire album that zeroes in on that incredible theme, the link between money and family. This was a discussion of the man’s acquisitions and power in downright tender terms, examining his rise on a level that few other careers in the same genre ever thrived long enough to approach. On songs like “Picasso Baby”, Shawn Carter discussed his wealth in familial terms, letting his new daughter, Blue, lean on a recently purchased Basquiat painting because she owns it.
JAY-Z’s last album was Magna Carta… Holy Grail in 2013, minus the hyphen but embracing all caps, and it wasn’t his best by any means. So, there’s no way 4:44 was going to be normal no matter what it sounded like. In fact, Beyoncé also made 2016’s most discussed (and also fervently beloved) album, Lemonade, and it just happened to largely concern her husband’s insinuated infidelity. But the biggest rapper of all time wouldn’t be ordinary in the slightest, and this one’s a friend of sorely missed president Barack Obama and married to Beyoncé, probably the most fervently beloved pop artist in America. “Legacy (Feat.It feels completely bizarre to say that the biggest rapper of all time has only just now at age 47 released his most lyrical album ever - this being his 13 th official album and 18 th if you count his collaborations with MTV Unplugged, R. Beyoncé, Kim Burrell, The-Dream, and Blue Ivy Carter are also credited on the new album.Ĥ. Stream 4:44 below, 10 tracks featuring appearances by Gloria Carter, Frank Ocean and Damian Marley. To this point, Jay-Z has teased his 13th solo LP with a handful of visual clips starring actors Mahershala Ali, Danny Glover and Lupita Nyong’o, for songs like “ADNIS” and “Kill JAY-Z.” The follow-up to 2013’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail is the first project to be released under TIDAL’s new partnership with Sprint, after the mobile company invested $200 million into te streaming platform earlier this year offering “ new and existing customers access to exclusive content and entertainment experiences in a way no other service can.”Įxclusively available to TIDAL subscribers and Sprint customers, 4:44 is executive produced by No I.D., a frequent collaborator of the Brooklyn MC in recent years. Following cryptic promo ads across major cities nationwide and commercials on primetime television, JAY-Z delivers his much-anticipated new solo album 4:44.