jay-z

Rich Juzwiak · 08/08/13 02:07PM

Girls' Jemima Kirke Reportedly Was Ejected From Jay Z's Video Set

Rich Juzwiak · 08/07/13 12:05PM

Artist Jemima Kirke got a little too clingy for Jay Z's comfort on the gallery set of "Picasso Baby," reports the New York Daily News. That's so unlike her disaffected Girls character Jessa. See what happens when, as an artist, you play against type? Your artist body loses control and your artist self gets shamed in front of luminaries such as Rosie Perez, Marilyn Minter, Jim Jarmusch, and your Girls costar Adam Driver.

Cord Jefferson · 07/26/13 04:07PM

Jay Z responds to Harry Belafonte's comment that the rapper and his wife, Beyonce, have "turned their back on social responsibility": "I’m offended by that because first of all, and this is going to sound arrogant, but my presence is charity. Just who I am. Just like Obama's is."

Hamilton Nolan · 07/09/13 10:16AM

"Rooting for this man in 2013 is like rooting for Pfizer. Or PepsiCo. Or PRISM." Chris Richards' review of Jay-Z's new album is ferociously accurate.

Jay-Z Is Answering Random Questions About Cereal on Twitter Right Now

Caity Weaver · 07/08/13 12:41PM

If you have always wanted to have a confusing four word conversation with Jay-Z while he laughs at you, now is your chance: He is currently responding to fans on Twitter. And laughing at them a lot, via the hashtag #mylaugh. The vibe is kind of weird. Sort of like if you and Jay-Z ran into one another at the grocery store and didn't really have anything to say to one another, but still wanted to talk.

Adorable Old Lady Who Rode the Subway With Jay-Z Reviews His Album

Rich Juzwiak · 07/08/13 12:27PM

Ellen Grossman, the visual artist who shot to virality when she appeared in Jay-Z's Where I'm From doc late last year, was enlisted by MTV News to share her thoughts on Magna Carta Holy Grail. While reviews of the $5 million data-mining operation have been mixed-to-positive, Grossman has nothing but generous words for it. Even though she has trouble with her hearing, she seems to like what she can hear, and besides, what's really important is that Jay-Z is trying. Says Grossman:

Jay-Z's New Album Is Basically A Massive Data-Mining Operation

Adrian Chen · 07/03/13 02:56PM

Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail is not so much an album as a co-branded multimedia content delivery platform, Presented By Samsung™ Galaxy™. He announced it, after all, during an epic commercial for the phone, and Samsung is giving away a million copies to people who download a special app by July 4th. But now another, more unsettling use for the new album has become clear: It's a massive data-mining operation. Fans used to obsess over album liner notes; now they freak out about terms-of-service.

Sandra Bullock in Talks to Play Miss Hannigan in Jay-Z's Annie

Caity Weaver · 06/13/13 06:00PM

America adores Sandra Bullock. No matter how many bombs she lobs at our box offices, no matter how many hitchhikers she drops bloodied and bruised on our dusty country roads, no matter how many Canadian dimes she plops in our tip jars, America adores her. For her next trick, Sandra Bullock will be get drunk and scream at a 9-year-old orphan that nobody loves her. America's going to adore it.

Senator Demands Probe into Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Cuban Anniversary

Max Read · 04/09/13 07:20AM

Excuse me, miss: did you really engage in cultural exchange with the Cuban people? Florida Senator Marco Rubio is ringing the alarm over Beyoncé and Jay-Z's fifth-anniversary trip to Cuba last week, which he claims was "seized on for propaganda purposes" by the Castro regime. The brief vacation was apparently given the green light by the Treasury Department, which licenses trips to Cuba for "educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction"; according to the New York Times, the crazy-in-love couple "visited the children's theater group La Colmenita, where Beyoncé danced with little girls dressed as bumblebees," and Beyoncé, apparently feelin' it, "half-danced" during a performance by the Cuban Contemporary Dance Company on Friday, which would seem to qualify (if she were a boy she might have, as her husband did, enjoy "a Cuban cigar on the balcony of their government-owned hotel, the Saratoga"). According to Academic Arrangements Abroad, which planned and arranged the trip, the officials that run this town (well really, who run the world of Cuba) had no foreknowledge of the vacation and "struggled to provide adequate security" (What? Who? we imagine them saying), but worked it out—and got Beyoncé bodies to protect her—in the end. "If interested in what life really like in #Cuba @S_C_," Rubio tweeted, "should have visited persecuted rapper #AngelYunierRemon #99problems&dictatorsareone." Listen, Marco: I know you have sweet dreams of showing Jay-Z and his naughty girl what you got, and I get that it's a hard knock life for politicians representing Cuban exiles—can't knock the hustle for Florida Senators—but surely you can work it out without resorting to bad puns based on Jay-Z and Beyoncé tracks? It's like you're making the songs cry. Move on to the next one. [Reuters | TPM | NYT]

Cord Jefferson · 04/02/13 11:01AM

Jay-Z has partnered with CAA to start a sports agency, Roc Nation Sports. His first client is Yankee Robinson Canó.