Jay Z, Jay, H.O.V.A., Hov, The carter, S. Carter, The Roc, and the list goes on; all point to the man, nay, the movement and icon that Shawn Carter has become. Better known as Jay Z, the rapper, businessman and global icon charted a life out of nothing and has risen to a pedestal as one of the most recognizable faces of modern rap music. MTV named him the ‘Greatest MC of all time’, Rolling Stone, one of the hardest to please critiques of all time, named ‘Reasonable Doubt’, his debut album, #248 on their top 500 albums of all time; he has won numerous Grammy awards alongside major successes in the business world.
Born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th December 1969, in the Marcy Houses Housing project, in Brooklyn, New York City,Jay Z never graduated from the George Westinghouse High School for Information Technology, which coincidentally was also attended by fellow rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, his drug runs were the reason.
His first official single was ‘I Can’t Get With That’, released independently, because he didn’t have any record deal. This prompted him to form an outfit, Roc-A-Fella records with Dame Dash and Kareem Biggs, after agreeing to a distribution deal with Priority. He followed it up with the release of his debut album ‘Reasonable Doubt’ in 1996, with production credits going to DJ Premier and Super DJ Clark Kent. The album peaked at #23 on the Billboard 200.
He has since gone on to release ‘In My Lifetime, Vol 1’ (1997), ‘Vol 2, Hard Knock Life’ (1998), ‘Vol 3, Life
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