Artist Profiles > Jay Z

He is one of the greatest living modern rappers ever and easily the most innovative of his time. Jay Z has built his career on hard work and graft, forming albums, songs, artists and record labels from scratch. Today, he owns his own empire in Roc-A-Fella with a personal wealth of over half a billion US dollars. What's more, he is married to the Queen of Pop, Beyoncé, making them one of the power couples of showbiz. Not bad for a Brooklyn born boy who started with nothing.

Jay Z has gone on to have multiple albums and collaborate with the biggest in the business. Notably, in 2007 he signed and produced for Rihanna, featuring on her biggest ever hit "Umbrella" which propelled her into superstardom. He also performed notoriously at the Glastonbury festival in the UK, back in 2008. After being shunned by Oasis's Noel Gallagher for doing the gig, he performed their big hit "Wonderwall" in reply, winning over the crowd.

More recently, he has ventured into the world of streaming music downloads, taking on the likes of Spotify and the even newer Apple service, by launching "Tidal". Unfortunately for him, things haven't quite gone to plan after not being able to attract as many users as they had hoped, leading to the departure of not 1 but two bosses and seeing their app fall out of the top 800 in the iTunes chart.

Discography

• Reasonable Doubt (1996)
• In My Lifetime, Vol 1 (1997)
• Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (1998)
• Vol.3... Life and Times of S. Carter (1999)
• The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (2000)
• The Blueprint (2001)
• The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002)
• The Black Album (2003)
• Kingdom Come (2006)
• American Gangsta (2007)
• The Blueprint 3 (2009)
• Magna Carta Holy Grail (20013)

Jay Z's Biggest Hits

• Heartbreaker (1999)
• Frontin' (2003)
• 03' Bonnie & Clyde (2003)
• Crazy In Love (2003)
• Dirt Off Your Shoulder (2004)
• Ni**as in Paris (2012)

5 Things You Didn't Know About Jay Z

1. Jay Z and Busta Rhymes went to school together, performing rap battles in the canteen!
2. He is worth a whopping $500 million
3. During his day as a street hustler, he carried a gun in a VHS box
4. His favorite movie is a tossup between "The Godfather" and "True Romance"
5. He discovered Rihanna and Rita Ora

By now you're probably getting the urge to listen to some of his music, so you will be pleased to know that the links below will let you download his songs in MP3 format for pennies a track. When you sign up to any of these sites, they usually provide you with some bonus credit so you can download a few songs without having to add money to your account.