“I made it so, you could say Marcy and it was all good / I ain’t crossover I brought the suburbs to the hood / Made ‘em relate to your struggle, told ‘em bout your hustle / Went on MTV with do-rags, I made them love you / You know normally them people wouldn’t be fuckin’ with you / ‘Til I made em understand why you do what you do / I expected to hear, ‘Jay, if it wasn’t for you’ / But instead, all I hear is buzzing in your crew...” –Jay-Z, “Come And Get Me.”
As we’ve seen previously on Rick Ross’ “Hustlin’ (Remix)” and Big Boi’s “Flip Flop Rock,” dumbing down one’s flow has its disadvantages too. When in lyrical cruise control, sometimes it’s difficult to turn that proverbial off switch back on. Back in March, listeners waited for a much-hyped collaboration between Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar. I’m among those that believe K.Dot lyrically ran circles around S dot Carter, but few seemed to care at that point. The artwork for “Bitch Dont Kill My Vibe (Remix)” featured Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on the court together. But it may as well have been a screen shot of a rookie Allen Iverson crossing Jordan over at the top of the key. I think the reason why is pretty clear to most of us. At this point, Jay-Z is more valuable as a cultural arbiter and ambassador for Hip Hop than a contemporary, bar-for-bar, competitive emcee. He’s far from the point where he can only be paraded out for the latest edition of VH1’s “Hip Hop Honors.” And I think he’s too smart to let that happen anyway.
I feel, by accumulating an impressive catalog of hit records, having owned a share of the Brooklyn Nets, and even campaigning with the President, Jay-Z has accomplished as much as he could as a rapper. So it makes perfect sense that he, the businessman with a constant itch for more, would move his first love to the side in favor of something new and exciting. Also, as part of this new partnership with Samsung, Jay appeared in a commercial with Timbaland, where he loosely alludes to “rewriting the rules,” albeit with regards to his becoming an agent, or by giving away one million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail–an unprecedented move by an artist of any genre, while simultaneously setting it up for even more sales.
I’m reminded of that moment on the Dynasty Roc La Familia “Intro” where Jay-Z called himself “Stevie Wonder with beads under the do-rag.” In the 13 years between then and now, Jay has essentially tried to be both Stevie Wonder and Berry Gordy. But as Jay’s turn next to Kendrick (or even next to a sober, more focused Lil Wayne circa 2004) showed us, there will always be emerging artists vying for the title of “Best Rapper Alive.”
What there may not be–at least for the foreseeable future–is a rapper capable of rubbing elbows with the President of the United States, helping Kevin Durant, Skylar Diggins and Robinson Cano boost their Q-rating, lunching with Warren Buffett, bringing Oprah Winfrey to the projects, hopefully schooling Gwyneth Paltrow on the correct time and setting to drop any iteration of the n-bomb (hint: never), and eloquently explaining the nuances of Hip Hop music and culture better than most of the talking heads on CNN, all while possibly notching a record thirteenth number one album.
Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde has already indicated the one million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail freely released to Samsung users July 1, won’t count as sales. This comes despite the fact that Samsung allegedly coughed up $20 million plus up to another $7.5 million in music rights and endorsement fees for the album.
“The ever-visionary Jay-Z pulled the nifty coup of getting paid as if he had a platinum album before one fan bought a single copy,” Werde wrote in the June 29 edition of Billboard. “(He may have done even better than that—artists generally get paid a royalty percentage wholesale. If Jay keeps every penny of Samsung’s $5 million purchase price, he’d be more than doubling the typical superstar rate.) But in the context of this promotion, nothing is actually for sale.”
All of which means we shouldn’t expect a ton of substance behind RocNation Sports or Magna Carta Holy Grail. But I do think they’ll both have significant cultural and financial impact and be profitable. The fact that folks have been talking about Jay-Z and Samsung for the last few weeks means they’ve both already won. I don’t think it’s disrespectful to call Magna Carta Holy Grail one long commercial for Jay-Z and Samsung. The album’s actual commercial debuted when the NBA Finals put up a 12.0 overnight rating. According to Nielsen, those are the highest ratings since the 2004 series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Detroit Pistons. So this landmark deal between Jay-Z’s camp and Samsung has already made its mark. And if we’re lucky, there will be some actual substance on the album too.