Quitting was Jay-Z’s means to join his late, great peers — Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, gangsta stars made icons by their unsolved killings in 1996 and ’97 — in receiving eternal, near-universal love from hip hop’s masses. (Real-life death was never an option. It’s simple to imagine the MC decades from now — Grey-Z — waving a cheque towards the Reaper, offering any price to extend his time.
) Yes, the retirement of Jay-Z would bring the rebirth of Shawn Carter, the co-founder and co-owner of rap’s Roc-A-Fella empire: built from scratch in the mid-’90s, after the major labels passed on , the rapper’s epic 1996 debut. In the decade since, Carter progressed from reformed drug dealer (his lyrics teem with references to his illicit past) to self-made music mogul who’d outgrown the limits of a recording career. Seven months after his video murder, Hov (another Carter moniker; his play on Jehovah) released Fade to Black , a feature documentary about his so-called farewell concert.
Regardless, the film should be required viewing for Showmanship 101. It is — he is — outstanding.) Then, two Decembers ago, Jay-Z and his longtime business partners, Damon Dash and Kareem Burke, sold their stake in Roc-A-Fella to Def Jam Records — the big poppa of hip-hop labels — for a tidy $10 million US.
As part of the deal, Jay (even now, only his mother calls him Shawn) would continue to run the Roc, shedding Dash and Burke in the process. And he accepted an offer to become Def Jam’s president and CEO, a power play that would do Gordon Gekko proud. No matter the name, the new Jay-Z was strictly business, a shark who would rather swim in boardrooms than recording booths.
So much for that plan. is the 37-year-old MC’s return to hip hop’s trenches. Jay announced the album this mid-September — from revelation to retail in nine-and-a-half weeks, a lightning strike in music industry scheduling — though he has spent the last year preparing its way.
President’s executive functions have included umpteen guest appearances on other rappers’ songs, a European concert tour and a public reconciliation with his arch lyrical foe, Nas. “It was the worst retirement, maybe, in history,” Hov told Entertainment Weekly for the late-summer cover story that made his comeback official. “As you see I can’t leave, so I do love you / But I’m just a hustler disguised as a rapper / In fact, you can’t fit this hustle inside of a wrapper,” Jay-Z raps on Quitting was Jay-Z’s means to join his late, great peers — Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, gangsta stars made icons by their unsolved killings in 1996 and ’97 — in receiving eternal, near-universal love from hip hop’s masses.
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