50 Fun Facts About Jay-Z

What is Jay-Z's birth name?

Shawn Corey Carter was nicknamed 'Jazzy' as a child, and his stage name plays on that and, by one account, on the J/Z subway lines that ran near his childhood home.

Jay-Z grew up in which New York City public housing project?

Marcy Houses, 27 six-storey blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is name-checked across his catalogue; Memphis Bleek grew up there too and became one of his label's first signings.

What is the name of Jay-Z's first child, born in January 2012?

Blue Ivy became a legal fight: Beyoncé moved to trademark the name, and a wedding planner whose firm already used it fought her for years until US officials dismissed the challenge in 2020.

Which singer joined Jay-Z on his 2009 No. 1 hit 'Empire State of Mind'?

Alicia Keys got the hook because Jay-Z thought of her as soon as he heard the track's piano loop; he has said he was 'two seconds away' from calling Mary J. Blige instead.

Which record label did Jay-Z co-found with Damon Dash and Kareem Burke?

Roc-A-Fella Records existed because no major label would sign Jay-Z, so the three friends put out his 1996 debut themselves; the name is a swaggering play on Rockefeller.

Which music streaming service did Jay-Z take over by buying Norway's Aspiro in 2015?

Tidal was relaunched weeks later, billed as the first artist-owned streaming service, with Madonna and Daft Punk among the co-owners.

Which 1998 Jay-Z single samples a song from the musical Annie?

Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem), produced by the 45 King, was his biggest hit to that point, and he came full circle in 2014 as a producer of the Annie film remake.

The hook of '99 Problems' was borrowed from a 1993 song by which rapper?

Ice-T first recorded the hook on his 1993 album Home Invasion, then re-recorded the song in 2014 with his metal band Body Count to 'reclaim' a line so often credited to Jay-Z.

Which producer returned to hip-hop after many years away to make Jay-Z's '99 Problems'?

Rick Rubin built the stripped-down beat from 1980s sample staples such as Billy Squier's 'The Big Beat', and he even turns up in the song's video.

Which Jay-Z album, released on September 11, 2001, showcased soul-sampling beats from a then little-known Kanye West?

The Blueprint still debuted at No. 1 despite its release date, and later became the first 21st-century recording chosen for the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.

Jay-Z served as president and CEO of which record label from 2004 to 2007?

Def Jam Recordings hired him in a deal that also bought out the rest of his own label; under him it broke Ne-Yo, and he stepped down on January 1, 2008.

Which singer did Jay-Z sign in 2005 as a label president, helping launch her career?

Rihanna auditioned for him in early 2005, and he was told not to let her leave the building without a deal, so she signed a six-album contract that very day.

Which rock band teamed with Jay-Z for the 2004 mashup EP Collision Course?

Linkin Park and Jay-Z won a Grammy for its single 'Numb/Encore', then played it at the 2006 ceremony with Paul McCartney, who slipped in the Beatles' 'Yesterday'.

Jay-Z's diss track 'Takeover' ignited a famous feud with which rapper?

Nas hit back with 'Ether', yet in October 2005 he walked on as the surprise guest at Jay-Z's 'I Declare War' concert and the pair performed 'Dead Presidents', a track that samples him.

Jay-Z's 2003 'retirement party' concert was held at which venue?

Madison Square Garden hosted the farewell on November 25, 2003, with all proceeds going to charity; the night became the film Fade to Black, and he was back with a new album within three years.

Jay-Z's first US No. 1 came in 1999 as a guest on 'Heartbreaker' by which singer?

Mariah Carey's 'Heartbreaker' spent two weeks at No. 1, yet he waited another decade to top the Hot 100 as lead artist, with 'Empire State of Mind'.

Which 2000 Jay-Z album was originally meant to be a label compilation?

The Dynasty: Roc La Familia was billed as a showcase for label-mates such as Beanie Sigel and Freeway but was sold as a Jay-Z solo album, and it still debuted at No. 1.

Eminem both produced and rapped on which 2001 Jay-Z track?

Renegade began as an Eminem duet with Royce da 5'9", whose verses were swapped for Jay-Z's; a rival later taunted that the guest had outrapped the host on his own album.

Jay-Z skipped the 1999 Grammys, where he won his first award, saying which fellow rapper deserved a nomination?

DMX had sent two albums to No. 1 in 1998 without a single nomination, so Jay-Z stayed home in protest and won Best Rap Album in his absence.

Jay-Z sold which clothing line he co-founded to Iconix Brand Group for $204 million in 2007?

Rocawear, founded with Damon Dash in 1999, was ringing up about $700 million a year at retail by then, and he stayed on to run its design and marketing after the sale.

Which Jack Dorsey-led company agreed in 2021 to pay $297 million for a majority stake in Jay-Z's music streaming service?

Square, since renamed Block, paid in cash and stock and gave Jay-Z a seat on its board; his group had bought the service for about $56 million six years earlier.

After dropping Cristal in 2006, Jay-Z championed and later bought which champagne, nicknamed 'Ace of Spades'?

Armand de Brignac's gold bottle turned up in his 'Show Me What You Got' video in 2006, soon after a Cristal executive's cool remarks about rappers, and he bought the brand in 2014.

Jay-Z was a part-owner of which NBA franchise for about a decade, until 2013?

Brooklyn Nets stock amounting to less than one percent was all he held, yet he helped steer the team's move from New Jersey, then sold up in 2013 to work as a sports agent.

Which Yankees star left agent Scott Boras for Jay-Z's Roc Nation Sports in 2013, then signed a $240 million Mariners deal?

Robinson Canó was the new agency's very first client, and that winter Jay-Z helped negotiate his ten-year Seattle deal, then tied for the third-largest his sport had seen.

What is the title of Jay-Z's 2010 memoir?

Decoded, co-written with dream hampton, sets out to make the case that hip-hop lyrics are poetry, which is why 36 of his songs are printed with his own line-by-line notes.

Jay-Z opened his 2008 Glastonbury set with a tongue-in-cheek cover of which song?

Wonderwall was his reply to a rock star who had said hip-hop had no business headlining: he strode on with a guitar slung over his shoulder and led the crowd in a singalong.

Which Oasis member condemned Glastonbury for booking Jay-Z to headline in 2008?

Noel Gallagher said the festival had 'a tradition of guitar music' and blamed the booking for slow ticket sales; Jay-Z answered by opening his set with an Oasis cover.

What is the title of Jay-Z and Kanye West's 2011 collaborative album?

Watch the Throne grew out of a planned five-song EP and reached iTunes four days before any shop had a copy, which helped make it a rare blockbuster that never leaked.

Which soul singer is credited as a guest on Jay-Z and Kanye West's 2011 album via sampled vocals?

Otis Redding had been dead for more than 40 years, killed in a 1967 plane crash, when the single named after him credited him as a featured artist, his 1966 'Try a Little Tenderness' chopped into the beat.

Under the name The Carters, Jay-Z and his wife released which 2018 album?

Everything Is Love was sprung on a London stadium crowd mid-tour: the screens played a video the couple had secretly shot inside the Louvre, then flashed the words 'Album Out Now'.

Which producer helmed Jay-Z's 2017 album 4:44?

No I.D. built every beat on the ten-track album, a rarity in modern rap, working from a playlist of Jay-Z's favourite records by the likes of Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder.

Jay-Z's album 4:44 launched as an exclusive for customers of which US mobile carrier?

Sprint, a major shareholder in his streaming service, paid for every copy it gave away to subscribers, which is how the album was certified platinum less than a week after release.

Jay-Z's 2013 album was first given away via an app to customers of which electronics company?

Samsung paid for a million copies up front, but Billboard refused to count them; its editor wrote that Jay-Z had been paid as if for a platinum album before a fan bought a single copy.

For a 2013 video, Jay-Z rapped 'Picasso Baby' for six hours in a gallery in homage to which performance artist?

Marina Abramović had sat silently facing strangers at MoMA for 736 hours in 'The Artist Is Present'; she turned up at the shoot and went face to face with him as he performed.

Which 2006 comeback album gave Jay-Z his biggest sales week ever, at 680,000 copies?

Its single 'Show Me What You Got' leaked early, and the FBI stepped in to investigate.

Jay-Z's 2007 concept album American Gangster was inspired by a film by which director?

Ridley Scott's crime drama starred Denzel Washington as a Harlem drug lord; Jay-Z kept the album off iTunes, arguing that 'movies are not sold scene by scene'.

Jay-Z pleaded guilty to assault over the 1999 stabbing of record executive Lance Rivera, whom he suspected of doing what?

Bootlegging his album was the suspicion: Vol. 3 was on the streets weeks before its release date. He received three years' probation, and in 2023 Rivera said Jay-Z had not been the one who stabbed him.

Jay-Z's song 'Adnis', teased before his 2017 album 4:44, is named after which relative?

His father, Adnis Reeves, walked out on the family when Jay-Z was 11; the clip that carried the song was first shown, pointedly, on Father's Day night.

Jay-Z adopted his stage name in homage to which mentor?

He is audible on Jaz-O's late-1980s records like 'Hawaiian Sophie', and developed his fast 'triplet time' flow with him.

Jay-Z's second album borrowed its title from which song, his debut single?

In My Lifetime was first hawked from the trunk of a car by Jay-Z and Damon Dash before Payday Records picked it up; a row over how it was handled pushed him to build his own label.

Which 1996 Jay-Z album peaked at only number 23 on the Billboard 200 yet is now considered a classic?

Reasonable Doubt, his 1996 debut, came out on the label he co-founded after the majors passed on him, with Mary J. Blige and The Notorious B.I.G. among its guests.

Whose record for No. 1 albums did Jay-Z surpass with his 11th chart-topper in 2009?

Elvis Presley was the solo act he passed, and he did it with an album that leaked in full more than a week before release yet still sold 476,000 copies in its first week.

Jay-Z's 40/40 Club, a sports bar opened in Manhattan in 2003, took its name from a feat in which sport?

Baseball's 40-40 club admits only players who hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season, and when the bar opened just three men had ever done it.

Which 2012 Jay-Z song made his newborn daughter the youngest person yet credited on a Billboard chart?

Glory came out two days after the birth and samples the baby's cries, much as Stevie Wonder did on 'Isn't She Lovely'; her featured credit put her on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 74.

Which architect, a master of bare concrete, designed the $200 million Malibu house the Carters bought in 2023?

Tadao Ando's seaside compound never reached the open market: it was quietly offered at $295 million, so the record-setting $200 million was in fact a $95 million discount.

Jay-Z rapped a guest verse on 'Suit & Tie', the 2013 comeback single of which singer?

Justin Timberlake was returning from a music hiatus spent largely in films, and the pair followed the single by co-headlining the Legends of the Summer stadium tour that July.

A then-unknown Jay-Z rapped on the 1994 posse cut 'Show and Prove' by which Brooklyn rapper, his touring mentor?

Big Daddy Kane would bring him out to freestyle while he left the stage to change outfits, though he insists Jay-Z was never his hype man, just a guest making cameo appearances.

Jay-Z became the first rapper inducted into which institution?

Songwriters Hall of Fame honours came in 2017 alongside Babyface and Max Martin, and he greeted the news by tweeting that he remembered 'when rap was said to be a fad'.

Jay-Z entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 alongside which fellow rapper?

LL Cool J went in the same night with the Musical Excellence Award, and Jay-Z, a first-time nominee, saluted his 'fellow inductee' among the rap heroes he had grown up on.

When Forbes declared Jay-Z hip-hop's first billionaire in 2019, its tally included his outside investment in which tech company?

Uber was one of his investments, a stake Forbes put at about $70 million; nine years earlier Warren Buffett had said of him, 'For a young person growing up, he's the guy to learn from.'