JAY Z

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known by his stage name Jay Z (formerly Jay-Z), is an American rapper, entrepreneur and investor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists in America. In 2014, Forbes estimated Jay Z's net worth at nearly $520 million. He is one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records, while receiving 21 Grammy Awards for his musical work, and numerous additional nominations. Consistently ranked as one of the greatest rappers ever, he was ranked number one by MTV in their list of The Greatest MCs of All-Time in 2006. Three of his albums, Reasonable Doubt (1996), The Blueprint (2001), and The Black Album (2003), are considered landmarks in the genre with all of them featured in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

As an entrepreneur and investor, Jay Z co-owns the New York 40/40 Club sports bar, and is the co-creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the former president of Def Jam Recordings, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, and the founder of Roc Nation. He also founded the sports agency Roc Nation Sports and is a certified NBA and MLB sports agent. As an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200 with 13. Jay Z also has had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, one as lead artist. On December 11, 2009, Jay Z was ranked as the tenth-most successful artist of the 2000s by Billboard as well as the fifth top solo male artist and fourth top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent. He was also ranked the 88th greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone.

Jay Z married American R&B singer Beyoncé in 2008.They have a daughter named Blue Ivy Carter, born January 7, 2012.

EARLY LIFE  OF JAY Z

Shawn Carter was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Marcy Houses, a housing project in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He and his three siblings were raised by their mother, Gloria Carter, after their father abandoned the family. He claims in his lyrics that in 1982, at the age of 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. Carter attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn, along with future rapper AZ, until it was closed down. After that he attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Downtown Brooklyn, with fellow future rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, and Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, but did not graduate. In his music he refers to having been involved in selling crack cocaine. He has also said he had been shot at three times during this time in his life.

According to his mother, Carter used to wake up his siblings at night banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table. Eventually, she bought him a boom box for his birthday, sparking his interest in music. He began freestyling, writing lyrics, and followed the music of many artists popular at the time. In his neighborhood, Carter was known as "Jazzy", a nickname that eventually developed into his showbiz/stage name, "Jay-Z". The moniker is also an homage to his musical mentor, Jaz-O. On July 18, 2013, he announced he was leaving out the hyphen, and prefers to be known as "Jay Z."

MUSICAL STYLE

Jay Z says his earliest exposure to music was through his parents' record collection, which was mostly of soul artists such as Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway. He says "I grew up around music, listening to all types of people... I'm into music that has soul in it, whether it be rap, R&B, pop music, whatever. As long as I can feel their soul through the wax, that's what I really listen to. He often uses excerpts from these artists as samples in his work, particularly in the Kanye West-productions included on The Blueprint.

RAPPING TECHNIQUE

Royce da 5'9" and Fredro Starr of Onyx both describe Jay Z's emphasis on flow in the book How to Rap – Starr says that Jay Z is "a master of the flow—he can flow fast, he can flow slow". The book describes how Jay Z uses 'rests' to provide structure to a verse and how he uses 'partial linking' to add more rhymes to a verse. Jay Z's early style is described by Vibe as "a distinctly Das EFX-type, stiggety style" on his 12" single "Can't Get With That", referring to the fast rhythms and vocal delivery of the group Das EFX. He is also known to write lyrics in his head, as described by Pusha T of Clipse in How to Rap, a style popular with many MCs such as The Notorious B.I.G., Everlast, Bobby Creekwater and Guerilla Black. Shock G of Digital Underground describes Jay Z's performance style, saying he "rarely breaks a sweat, and instead uses smoothness and clever wordplay to keep the audience interested and entertained"

HIS BUSINESS

Jay Z has also established himself as a successful entrepreneur with a business empire spanning across a variety of industries ranging from clothing lines, beverages, real estate, sport teams, and record labels. In an interview, he stated that "my brands are an extension of me. They're close to me. It's not like running GM, where there's no emotional attachment." Jay Z and Damon Dash are the founders of the urban clothing brand Rocawear.Rocawear has clothing lines and accessories for men, women and children. The line was taken over by Jay Z in early 2006 following a falling out with Dash. In March 2007, Jay Z sold the rights to the Rocawear brand to Iconix Brand Group, for $204 million. He retains his stake in the company and continues to oversee the marketing, licensing and product development. He also co-owns the 40/40 Club, an upscale sports bar that started in New York City and has since expanded to Atlantic City and Chicago. In 2008, the 40/40 club in Las Vegas was closed down and bought back by the hotel after attendance steadily declined. Future plans will see 40/40 Clubs in Tokyo and Singapore.In 2005, Jay Z became an investor in Carol's Daughter, a line of beauty products, including products for hair, skin, and hands. In September 2013, his stake in Barclays Center was sold for $1.5 million.

Jay Z serves as co-brand director for Budweiser Select and collaborates with the company on strategic marketing programs and creative ad development. He provides direction on brand programs and ads that appear on TV, radio, print, and high-profile events. He is also yet to expand his 40/40 Club sports bar in as many as 20 airports, as he makes deals with his business partners, Juan and Desiree Perez.He is a part-owner of the Brooklyn Nets NBA team, having paid a reported $4.5 million for his share, which declined in value to $350,000 in April 2013. He encouraged the team's relocation to Brooklyn's Barclays Center (from New Jersey) in the 2012–2013 season, at which point the team took on the Brooklyn Nets moniker. In October 2005, he was reported in English media as considering buying a stake of Arsenal F.C., an English soccer team.He has also invested in a real estate development venture called J Hotels which recently acquired a $66 million mid-block parcel in Chelsea, New York. Jay Z and his partners are contemplating constructing a high-end hotel or an art gallery building on the newly acquired site which has the potential to go up about twelve stories. Through his conglomerate company Gain Global Investments Network LLC, he had an interest estimated between 2 and 7% in the Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG) consortium, which in January 2010 was awarded a contract to operate a 4,500 slot machine racino at the Aqueduct Race Track. Jay Z became interested in the project after New York Governor David Paterson who awarded the contract said there had to be an affirmative action component to the ownership. Jay Z initially approached by casino mogul Steve Wynn who was also bidding on the contract. On March 9, 2010, Jay Z and Flake withdrew from the project and Paterson recused himself from further involvement.On November 16, 2010, Jay Z published a memoir entitled Decoded.

In April 2011, it was widely reported that Jay Z had outbid executives at Universal Records and Jive Records to acquire independent record label Block Starz Music.

Jay Z is also credited as the executive producer of the basketball video game NBA 2K13, where he worked on the look and feel of the game along with its soundtrack.

On April 2, 2013, ESPN Jay Z launched his own sports agency, Roc Nation Sports with a focus on the representations of various professional athletes. The sport management group will work as partners with Creative Artists Agency. In conjunction with the agency's launch, New York Yankees's second basemen Robinson Cano has left agent Scott Boras to sign with the company. Sources have made mention that Jay Z himself is planning to be a certified sports agent, first in baseball and eventually in basketball and football. In order to represent clients in basketball, he would have to give up his small share of the Brooklyn Nets. On April 18, 2013 Jay Z officially announced through his Life + Times website in a press release that he will be relinquishing his ownership in the Brooklyn Nets. The shares were eventually sold to American singer, rapper, actor and entrepreneur Wilber Pan, making Wilber the first American of Taiwanese descent to own a US professional sports franchise. Jay Z's cited Wilber's athletic background as a team captain of his high school basketball team and playing in college, his multitude of musical styles, influence in the Taiwanese American community, as well as his business acumen and portfolio, including him being the founder and chief executive of a software company Camigo Media and a co-founder of streetwear boutique N.P.C (New Project Center) as reasons why his bid was successful. In 2014, Jay Z invested $200 million in Armand de Brignac champagne owned Sovereign Brands, a New York-based wine and spirits company for a 100 percent stake, making it the second alcoholic product acquisition in his financial investment portfolio. The brand is known for its popularity with high profile artists as being the gold bottles often referred to in media. His ties to the company date back to 2006 and received millions of dollars per year for his association with Armand de Brignac before he bought the entire company.

In March 2015, Jay Z completed the $56 million acquisition of Aspiro, a Norwegian media technology company that operates the subscription-based music streaming service, Tidal, which has been in operation since October 2014. The music service was acquired through his company Project Panther Bidco Ltd. (an entity indirectly owned by Jay-Z’s S. Carter Enterprises a company holding interests in leading international music, media and entertainment companies). The acquisition was compleated with the help of Mooreland Partners, a leading global technology-focused M&A advisory firm, which acted as financial advisor to Aspiro. The music service combines lossless audio and high definition music videos with curated editorial. The main idea of the service is to bring major revenue streams back to the music artists themselves as the idea of an artist-owned streaming platform was stated as to "restore the value to music by launching a service owned by artists." Jay Z currently is a major shareholder in the company.

Parlux fragrances sued Jay Z for $18 million for the failure of Jay Z's cologne, Gold. They claim the cologne's failure is due to Jay Z not doing social media posts and interviews about the cologne. The company defended that they were expected to make $50 million over two years with the cologne. However, the company supposedly lost money and have had constant returns of unsold inventory.

In July 2015, Carter invested $20 million in JetSmarter, an app that lets people book private executive plane rides in seconds. The app was built by 27-year-old entrepreneur Sergey Petrossev.

PERSONAL LIFE

(RELATIONSHIP WITH BEYONCE)

Jay Z is married to American R&B singer Beyoncé. In 2002, Jay Z and Beyoncé collaborated for the song "'03 Bonnie & Clyde". Jay Z also appeared on Beyoncé's hit single "Crazy in Love" as well as "That's How You Like It" from her debut album Dangerously in Love. On her second album, B'Day, he made appearances on the 2006 hits, "Déjà Vu" and "Upgrade U". In the video for the latter song, she comically imitates his appearance. The couple generally avoids discussing their relationship. Beyoncé has stated that she believes that not publicly discussing their relationship has helped them. Jay Z said in a People article, "We don't play with our relationship." They kept a low profile while dating, and married in April 2008. It became a matter of public record on April 22, 2008, but Beyoncé did not publicly debut her $5 million Lorraine Schwartz-designed wedding ring until the Fashion Rocks concert on September 5, 2008 in New York City.

Beyoncé and Jay Z were listed as the most powerful couple for TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2006. In January 2009, Forbes ranked them as Hollywood's top-earning couple, with a combined total of $162 million. They also made it to the top of the list the following year, with a combined total of $122 million between June 2008 and June 2009.

At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Beyoncé revealed that she was pregnant with their first child and on January 7, 2012, she gave birth to their daughter, named Blue Ivy Carter, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. On January 9, 2012, Jay Z released "Glory", a song dedicated to their child, on his social website LifeandTimes.com. The song detailed the couple's pregnancy struggles, including a miscarriage Beyoncé suffered before becoming pregnant with their daughter. Because Blue's cries were included at the end of the song and she was officially credited on the song as "B.I.C", at 2 days old she became the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart when "Glory" debuted on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at number 74.