JIGGA INTERVIEW

Here's a cool recent interview of the Jiggaman. He talks about his upcoming gigs in the UK, amongst other things. Dude's got a fresh outlook towards life!

THA CARTERS SIGN PRENUP DEAL

The Carters, who just got married a couple of weeks ago have signed a comprehensive prenup deal that will see Jigga forking out a lot of money if he messes up.

According to various media reports, Beyonce (who is worth a cool $100 million)is set to get paid up to $25 million by new husband Jay-Z (who is worth $500 million depending on who you ask) if the marriage ends. The deal is structured in a way that she will get more money the longer she stays with him.

B will have access to all the money, accounts, cars, NetJet private plane service, the yacht, homes and offices they share during the marriage.

She will get $10 million after 2 years of marriage, then $1 million every year of marriage up to 15 years.

In addition to cash payments, the agreement also includes a few of Hov's prized possessions. According to the report, Beyonce would be granted access to their private jet and a fleet of cars, which includes a $1 million 1959 Rolls Royce convertible. Jigga has promised to pay B an additional $5 million for each child she bears for him-for her loss of income during pregnancy and child-rearing years.

Damn, B definitely doesn’t come cheap! Shooo!

EXCLUSIVE - NEW JAY-Z FREESTYLE

Listen:


I saw this one coming! Real Jigga fans wil know that every time he makes a major business move (the latest being the $150 million recording deal that he has just inked with Live Nation), he releases a freestyle. On this particular one, "Blow your whistle", he waxes about his big payday joking that it would take Will Smith 7 movies to amass that type of petty cash and comapres himself to John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, amongst other things.

Well, like he says, "Women lie, men lie but numbers don't!".

Check it out, it's an Encore exclusive!

B AND JAY TIE THE KNOT

Congratulations to Mr and Mrs Carter for their nuptials. They reportedly tied the knot last week Friday at a small wedding filled with famous friends and family.

JAY-Z SIGNS LANDMARK $150 M MUSIC DEAL

Jay-Z plans to depart his longtime record label, Def Jam, for a roughly $150 million package with the concert giant Live Nation that includes financing for his own entertainment venture, in addition to recordings and tours for the next decade. The pact, expected to be finalized this week, is the most expansive deal yet from Live Nation, which has angled to compete directly with the industry’s established music labels in a scrum over the rights to distribute recordings, sell concert tickets, market merchandise and control other aspects of artists’ careers.

Live Nation’s core business has revolved around major rock and country tours, and with Jay-Z it is making an unexpected foray into hip-hop. The company is also placing an enormous wager on a performer who, like many others, has experienced declining record sales. (Last year’s “American Gangster” sold one million copies in the United States; “The Black Album,” from 2003, sold well over three million.)

But the arrangement would also position Live Nation to participate in a range of new deals with Jay-Z, one of music’s most entrepreneurial stars, whose past ventures have included the Rocawear clothing line, which he sold last year for $204 million, and the chain of 40/40 nightclubs.

His first undertaking with Live Nation is his current 28-date tour with Mary J. Blige, his biggest live outing in more than three years. After that, Live Nation envisions integrating the marketing of all Jay-Z’s entertainment endeavors, including recordings, tours and endorsements.

“I’ve turned into the Rolling Stones of hip-hop,” Jay-Z said in a recent telephone interview.

As part of the arrangement, Live Nation would finance the start-up of a venture that would be an umbrella for his outside projects, which are expected to include his own label, music publishing, and talent consulting and managing. Live Nation is expected to contribute $5 million a year in overhead for five years, with another $25 million available to finance Jay-Z’s acquisitions or investments, according to people in the music industry briefed on the agreement. The venture, to be called Roc Nation, will split profits with Live Nation.

The overall package for Jay-Z also includes an upfront payment of $25 million, a general advance of $25 million that includes fees for his current tour, and advance payment of $10 million an album for a minimum of three albums during the deal’s 10-year term, these people said. A series of other payments adding up to about $20 million is included in exchange for certain publishing, licensing and other rights. Jay-Z said Live Nation’s consolidated approach was in sync with the emerging potential “to reach the consumer in so many different ways right now.”
He added: “Everyone’s trying to figure it out. I want to be on the front lines in that fight.”

Though sales for Jay-Z’s tour with Ms. Blige have been strong since it began on March 22, with almost all the early dates resulting in sold-out arenas, it is unclear when Live Nation could carry out other aspects of the deal. (Jay-Z said that he hoped to deliver his final album for Def Jam later this year.)

Critics of Live Nation, which lost nearly $12 million last year, predict that it would be difficult to turn a profit on the arrangement, given the continuing decline in record sales and the mixed track record of artist-run ventures. Shares in the company have suffered since October when Live Nation negotiated a reported $120 million deal with Madonna.

Source: The New York Times

JAY-Z & MARY J BLIGE KICK OFF TOUR

Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige kicked off their “Heart of the City” tour at the American Airlines Arena in Miami on Saturday night. A couple of their celebrity friend came to show love. Guests included Kanye West, The Dream, Timbaland, Fabolous, Young Jeezy and more.

EXCLUSIVE - JAY-Z FEAT. MARY J. BLIGE & SWIZZ BEATZ - YOU'RE ALL WELCOME

Encore did it again baby! We present to you the newest track from Jay-Z titled "You're All Welcome". Jiggaman enlists the Queen of Soul, Mary J. Blige, and superproducer/hypeman Swzz Beatz on a refreshingly soulful and heartwarming song. As always Jigga has got a couple of goosebump-enducing lines, case in point:

"I put my life on these tracks/
you act like y'all don't wanna pay me for the facts/
luckily my therapy is to rap/
I just bare my soul, I don't expect nothing back/
you're all welcome, long as you're welcome"

SLOW DOWN HOV YOU'RE KILLING THEM!

NEW VIDEO - JAY-Z'S "I KNOW"

As always we deliver you a dope new video before it hits the music video channels. This is Jay-Z’s new video for the song “I Know” off of the American Gangster album. The video was directed by Philip Andelman and features Zoe Kravitz (yeah, Lenny's baby girl). The video is described as “a surreal, daydream-like blending of four separate and unrelated stories, four unique trips taken on by four girls in one night in New York City.” And Jay-Z makes no appearance whatsoever. Quite creative in my opinion.

What do y'all think of it?

NEW JAY-Z TRACK

"Ain't I" was recorded a while ago but has only surfaced recently. Produced by Timbaland, Jigga addresses his haters and foes. The joint appears on DJ Clue's new mixtape "I Am Legend" and it surfaces amidst the rumours that Def Jam is in the process of dismantling Roc-A-Fella Records.

JAY-Z LEAVING DEF JAM?

Many of you might not know this but Jay-Z's Def Jam contract expires at the end of this month but renewal negotiations between the mogul and parent company, Universal Music, have reportedly reached an impasse. According to New York's Daily News, a source from Universal says that Jigga wants too much money that is "out of sync with the realities of today's record business".

"People have lost count of how many times he's come out of retirement," the source said. "Everybody knows he's not around the office much. Everybody at Universal loves him, but they can't justify paying him the money he wants when so many people have been laid off."

But obviously Jay doesn't care that people are being laid off, he knows his worth and anybody in the business can see that he has brought tremendous success to Def Jam with artists such as Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Nas, Rick Ross and Fabolous.

After negotiating with him for a couple of weeks now, Island/Def Jam CEO L.A. Reid and his boss, Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music are said to have found Jay's demands "excessive."

But friends of Hov rebuffed the claim that Reid and Morris have had it with Jay, saying, "They are still actively negotiating,"

Rumours are also rife that he is planning to join Rick Rubin at Columbia Records in a high-level executive role.

One person close to Jay said, "The talks will continue when [Hov] returns to New York. They still have a ways to go before a decision."

The rapper-turned-CEO recently celebrated his 38th birthday in Paris with the lovely B by his side.

VIDEOS - JAY-Z PERFORMING LIVE

Since he released "American Gangster" last week in the States, the Jiggaman has been doing an extensive tour of clubs and other intimate spots in promotion of his latest critically acclaimed album. Here are two clips that show Jigga doing his thing live:

At the Velvet Room in Atlanta


This seems like an impromptu performance that was staged while the cats were chilling in VIP. Usher, Jermaine Dupri, Rick Ross, Beanie Sigel, Freeway and others were all in attendance. You can see them downing innumerable bottles of Ace of Spades, the new champagne that Jay has officially replaced Cristal with.

At the House of Blues


In this clip, Jay performs "No Hook" at the famous House of Blues. Notice that he's accompanied by a full band that by the way things sound, are killing his beats to the tee. "I don't need no hook for this s**t". Word!

JAY-Z PREVIEWS AMERICAN GANGSTER

Since the Jiggaman made an impromptu announcement that he would be releasing an album this November titled “American Gangster” that is inspired by the Denzel Washington film with the same name, peeps all over the world have been waiting anxiously for songs to leak on the net so that they could determine as to whether the material is as hot as has been promised.

I have two tracks so far, the fun Neptunes-produced “Blue Magic” and the hustlers’ celebratory anthem “Roc Boys”, and I must say I am going apeshit with excitement. Those two joints are really setting a good tone for the conceptual album that will see Jay-Z going back in memory to his dope-dealing days and weaving lyrical imagery that is guaranteed to raise that hair at the back of your neck. Commentators and critics are already putting the upcoming album in the league of “Reasonable Doubt” and “Blueprint”, so it will be interesting to see how hip hop heads eventually react to it.

Below is an excerpted article that recently appeared in Entertainment Weekly magazine. It reveals details about Jigga’s recording process with this album; it also previews some of the tracks that will make the final cut on “American Gangster”.
Hovie’s home.

“L'chaim," Jay-Z pronounced, holding up a shot of Patron rum, joined by the dozen or so journalists he'd invited to his Roc the Mic Studios in NYC on Friday evening. The Hebrew toast struck me as oddly apt: Simchas Torah, the Jewish holiday celebrating the first day of reading the holy scriptures, had ended just hours earlier, and here I was sitting with Jay-Hova, the self-proclaimed God Emcee, moments after he'd blessed us with his latest divine words.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The sacred writ he shared with us before those Patron shots was American Gangster, the concept album he's planning to release Nov. 6. The unmastered tracks he played for us were missing verses here and there, and he's still mulling over the album's exact sequencing. Even in that incomplete state, though, American Gangster already sounded like a Jay-Z fan's dream come true. Make no mistake — despite the emotional reference points provided by the album's namesake film, which played overhead on a flat-screen TV throughout the listening session, this music is all about Jay and the things that make him a great artist.

The beats are dominated by warm, powerful soul samples, even more so than on Jay's 2001 classic The Blueprint; the lyrics outlining a street hustler's mentality are by turns as clever, as incisive, as gritty, as moving as any in his catalogue. (The album is in part a reaction to the lyrical vapidity of hits like Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot," he said: "When the guy says 'I could make a mil' saying nothing on the track,' you know you've reached a bad place.") After the jump, check out a track-by-track preview of the highlights so far.

• "Pray": American Gangster's first cut, one of several produced by none other than Sean "Diddy" Combs — whom Jay still calls "Puffy," harkening back to days long past when both were members of the late Notorious B.I.G.'s circle. "[The album] starts with a kid looking into the game," Jay explained. The beat slams ominously behind his scene-setting rhymes: "Mindstate of a gangster from the '40s/Meets the business mind of Motown's Berry Gordy."

• "No Hook": Another wide-screen Puff production, full of dark organ vibes, and more rhymes from an aspiring kingpin's perspective: "F---rich, let's get wealthy/Who else gon' feed we?" The mood is sneering, hungry, with Jay almost seeming to slip into his long-abandoned double-time flow at times.

• "Roc Boys": "That's him at his height," Jay said of his persona in this song. "It's a celebration of the whole s---." Exultant horns burst out on the beat (Puffy again) as the rapper revels in a lifestyle funded by ill-gotten riches: "First of all, I wanna thank my connect/The most important person, with all due respect/...Think rosé/Think O.J./I get away with murder when I sling yey'." (The song also includes a reference to "black bar mitzvahs." Maybe that "L'chaim" was even more significant than I realized.)

• "I Know": Hard-hitting percussion and sparkling synths underly this conceptual track about desire's many faces: "I know what you like/I'm your prescription/I'm your physician/I'm your addiction." "I'm using a lot of heroin references," Jay noted as he tried to unpack the song's multi-layered metaphors. "[But] on another level, it plays as a song about relationships. And on a drunk-too-much-wine-one-night level, it plays as the game talking to me. It's f---ing weird — but the music is great." He's not lying.

• "Ignorant S---": Web-savvy fans may recall a purposefully outrageous outtake from 2003's The Black Album bearing this name. "It's one of those gems you can't let go," Jay said now. So he dusted it off for Gangster, complete with the unforgettably explicit hook in which he boasts, "I got that ignorant s--- you like/N----, f---, s----, a--, b----, trick, plus ice!" Just call him rap's George Carlin. The song now also features a decidedly non-ignorant new verse in which Jay thoughtfully eviscerates Don Imus and all those who've equated the disgraced shock jock with foul-mouthed rappers — plus some tight guest bars from Jay's longtime protege Beanie Sigel.

• "Success": The endorphin rush provided by new money starts to wear off on this cut, produced by Chicago veteran (and Kanye West mentor) No I.D. "I used to give a f---, now I give a f--- less," Jay reflects over a rapidly descending organ riff. "Truth be told, I had more fun when I was piss-poor." Jay's former rival Nas talked him into letting him spit on this track; Nas' verse hasn't been mixed in yet, but Jay promises that "It's hot. He killed it."

• "Say Hello to the Bad Guy": Atlanta's DJ Toomp (T.I.'s "What You Know," Kanye West's "Big Brother") contributed this beat, which keeps that darkening mood going with church-like organs.

• "When the Money's Gone": The title says it all about this one. Jay raps about the inevitable downfall which befalls even the most successful hustlers; Jermaine Dupri produced the backdrop of shuffling drums and cascading synths.

• "Fallen": Another J.D. production, and likely the album's final track. Jay reflects on the perverse pleasure the public takes in seeing a star destroyed: "Fallen/They applaudin'." Neo-soul crooner Bilal sings the elegiac hook. It's a cathartic ending to an emotionally gripping album.

Conspicuously missing from the evening's playlist was "Blue Magic," the album's fantastic teaser single; Jay still isn't sure yet where it would fit in, and he's even considering making it an unlisted bonus track.

"AMERICAN GANGSTER" THE RETURN OF THE LEGEND

AS WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED, JAY-Z IS PUTTING TOGETHER LAST MINUTE TOUCHES TO HIS SECOND ALBUM IN LESS THAN A YEAR. TENTATIVELY TITLED AMERICAN GANGSTER, THE CONCEPTAL ALBUM USES THE UPCOMING DENZEL WASHINGTON-STARRING MOVIE WITH THE SAME NAME AS INSPIRATION. JIGGA HAS UNVEILED THE COVER ART FOR THE ALBUM, AND IN TYPICAL JIGGA FASHION HE'S GOT EVERYBODY IN THE INTERNET WORLD BLOGGING FURIOUSLY ABOUT IT. IT IS A COOL COVER - CLASSY, UNDERSTATED AND MYSTERIOUS- IF I CAN SAY SO MYSELF.

BUT COME NOVEMBER 06TH, IT WON'T BE THE COVER DOING THE TALKING; ITS THE MUSIC THAT WILL DETERMINE WHETHER JIGGA IS WORTH MENTIONING IN RAP CIRCLES ANYMORE.

THE QUESTION IS: WILL JAY-Z BETTER HIS LEGACY WITH 'AMERICAN GANGSTER' OR WILL THE ALBUM RELEGATE HIM TO HIP HOP OBSCURITY?

YOU BE THE JUDGE. AMERICAN GANGSTER IS COMING!

JAY-Z SET TO RELEASE ANOTHER BLOCKBUSTER ALBUM

Jay-Z is getting off the St. Tropez beach to give us a brand new album
Jay-Z is currently putting the finishing touches on his tenth solo album titled "American Gangster," which is inspired by the upcoming flick of the same name starring Oscar Award winner Denzel Washington.

According to The New York Times, Jay-Z has revealed that the movie mirrored his drug dealing past and he has already crafted nine songs which are inspired by specific scenes in the movie.

"It was like I was watching the film, and putting it on pause, and giving a back story to the story," Jay-Z said. "Watching that film, it brought back all these memories. It took me back to those emotions."

"It immediately clicked with me," he continued. "Like Scarface or any one of those films, you take the good out of it, and you can see it as an inspiring film."
The album, which will not serve as the movie's official soundtrack, features a cut produced by Pharrell. Details of other producers or guest appearances were not revealed.

The trailer for American Gangster already features Jay-Z's song "Heart of the City," off his album The Blueprint.

The new album called "American Gangster" will be released Tuesday November 6th.

The first song from "American Gangster" entitled "Blue Magic" has been released and is set to have a 80’s feel to it. The track is produced by the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams.

From the sound of it, this new album will definitely be more hardcore and punchy, and will see Jay revisiting the swagger from the Blueprint era that helped cement his place in the higher echelons of hip hop.

NO. 1 - THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN HIP HOP

Dollar Status - $500 Million (R3.5 Billion)
Portfolio – Rocawear clothing, Roc-a-fella records, S.Carter sneakers, New Jersey Nets, 40/40 Clubs and more.

By Kopano Marumo

Hova has gone from being a neighbourhood drug dealer to being the head of the most prestigious hip hop record label. The president of Def Jam is entrusted with billions and earns $3 million per annum to sit in his high rise suave sanctuary, otherwise known as his office.

To lend his name to products, he lands $9 million in endorsements per annum.

Just a few months ago, he was sitting at the number two spot on this very list - a "mere" six million separating him from Diddy's $346 million shiny suits. Not only did he manage to make up the shortfall and reclaim the number one spot, he now sits on over half-a-billion dollars.

The sale of his clothing label Roc-a-Wear, which he founded just a scant 8 years ago, to Iconix Group landed him over $200 million. He still has his S.Carter sneaker range with Reebok, which still holds the title of being the best-selling sneaker line in the sportswear brand’s history, and his cool chain of sports clubs 40/40, which gives him a $5million annual pay cheque and is due to expand further than New York and Atlantic City.

He also owns a minority stake in NBA team New Jersey Nets, a transaction that set him back around 5 million green ones. Even with poor sales from his post-retirement offering Kingdom Come, high royalty rates have ensured $2million in his Cayman Island bank accounts.

Damn, Jigga really wasn’t lying when he said “Put me anywhere on God’s green earth, I’ll triple my worth”.