Powerful. Genius. Classic. These are just a few words used to describe Jay-Z’s new album, ‘4:44’, released on June 30th, 2017 through Roc Nation as an exclusive to Tidal and Sprint customers.
With his 14th consecutive album to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, Jay-Z brings the old school to the new school with one hit single and 9 other songs that entertain and inform the public on today’s worldly problems. The 10 songs on this album bring up different racial and political issues while also entertaining its audience with a nostalgic beat playing in the background for most of the songs. Jay-Z incorporates diversity within the album by sampling Jazz legend Nina Simone in a couple of his tracks, such as “4:44”, for which this album was named and “The Story of O.J.”.
Jay-Z gives the audience a peek into his private life by exposing himself and apologizing for cheating on Beyonce, his wife of nine years and the mother of his three children, in his song “4:44” which was a response to Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ album in which she brought up infidelity. ‘4:44’, the album, discusses a plethora of topics that everyone will want to engage in and have a frank and honest conversation about.
Jay-Z encompasses many different artists in the album and also features vocals from his family and a variety of artists both old and new. His daughter Blue Ivy, his wife Beyonce, his mother Gloria Carter, The Dream, Damien Marley and Frank Ocean are all a part of this historical album contributing their voices to songs such as “Bam”, “Smile” and “Caught Their Eyes”.
‘4:44’ opens the eyes of Jay-Z fans all around the world and is extremely beneficial to promoting more successful people, marriages, families and lives in all communities that it has reached so far. Jay-Z reminds us to kill our ego’s in “Kill Jay-Z” but to keep just a little bit of that ego in his hit, “Bam”.
Overall, ‘4:44’ receives 10 stars out of 10 stars.