Tag: Jay-Z
As the art world goes crazy and the rap world goes “meh” for Magna Carta Holy Grail, here’s a very special Jay-Z edition of Sample Wars. “Crown,” one of that album’s standouts, was produced by a 16-year-old girl named Wondagurl, and used a sample from Sizzla’s 2006 dancehall classic “Solid as a Rock” –also reworked for 50 […]
As if Jay Z‘s new song “Picasso Baby” from the upcoming album Magna Carta Holy Grail wasn’t already art enough, the rapper has decided to perform the song at the Pace Gallery — for six hours without stopping. Pace Gallery is “a leading contemporary art gallery representing more than 70 artists and estates, with galleries in New York, […]
Jack White has long gone to dizzying heights to make the releases on his Third Man record label as bizarre as possible. From memory, there’s the blues single by Stephen Colbert, a live album by Conan O’Brien, and that unforgettable ICP/White/Mozart collabo. This, however, may present a new high (or low, depending on your perspective): […]
If you weren’t one of the 1 million Samsung smartphone owners who were treated to a free copy of Jay-Z’s new album last week, you could choose one of two options–wait for the thing to pop up on the Pirate Bay and torrent it, or, if you have an Android, get a pirated version of the […]
To mark the upcoming release of his new album-cum-viral-marketing-stunt, Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay-Z created some shiny, mostly contentless promotional books, then sent fans on a scavenger hunt to find them. Inside was the album’s tracklist accompanied by black bars that look like censored lyrics–I’d call it some kind of comment on NSA surveillance, but even that […]
Each week in Sample Wars, we’ll pit two songs which sample the same source material head-to-head against each other, to determine which one rocked the sample better. This week’s Sample Wars pits two generations of NYC-bred rappers against each other: Jay-Z and Azealia Banks. Jay’s “Lucifer,” produced by Kanye West, heavily samples Max Romeo’s roots reggae […]
Each week in Sample Wars, we’ll pit two songs which sample the same source material head-to-head against each other, to determine which one rocked the sample better. Both of this week’s contestants are aging rap legends who’ve spent a lot of time in headlines recently: Jay-Z, for his trip to Cuba, “Open Letter,” and sale of […]
“Geeks are definitely the new rock stars,” goes the tagline to Bravo’s goofy new reality show about “startup culture,” and hamfisted a sentiment though it may be, at least one proposed mega-high-dollar business transaction is playing right into it! Reddit cofounder and Brooklyn native Alexis Ohanian told Bloomberg News Tuesday that he’s “absolutely” interested in […]
Hip-hop entrepreneur Michael “Blue” Williams is proposing an unusual plan to deal with gun violence in New York: offer tickets to see Jay-Z or Beyonce at their upcoming shows to anyone who brings in a firearm for buyback. Williams also plans to augment the buyback model in more substantiative ways, giving the option for kids […]
Here is ANIMAL’s original supercut of over 30 references to “Brooklyn” in song and rap lyrics. Ta-da! Beastie Boys – “No Sleep ’til Brooklyn” Jay-Z – “Empire State of Mind” Wolfe Tones – “Streets of Brooklyn” 3rd Bass – “Brooklyn Queens” Barry Manilow – “Brooklyn Blues” Jay-Z – “Brooklyn Go Hard” Charles Hamilton – “Brooklyn […]
