Jay-Z

Jay-Z
Jay-Z at the Shawn Carter Foundation Carnival in September 2011.
Background information
Birth name	Shawn Corey Carter
Born	December 4, 1969 (1969-12-04) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop
Occupations	Rapper
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1989–present
Labels	Roc Nation

Jay-Z

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York) better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper and businessman. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. Jay-Z co-owns The 40/40 Club and the New Jersey Nets NBA team. He is one of the most financially successful hip-hop artists and businessmen in America..

Jay-Z has several nicknames, "Jigga", "Hova", and "the greatest rapper alive". He is married to diva superstar Beyoncé Knowles. He has released the following albums during his career:

• Reasonable Doubt
• The Life & Times Of S. Carter Vol.1
• The Life & Times Of S. Carter Vol.2
• The Life & Times Of S. Carter Vol.3
• The Dynasty: Roc La Familia
• The Blueprint
• MTV Unplugged
• The Blueprint 2 : The Gift & The Curse
• The Blueprint 2.1
• The Black Album
• Kingdome Come
• American Gangster
• The Blueprint 3

Biography

Early life

Jay-z had a really rough adolescence. At the age of 11 his father left the family, so Shawn Corey Carter was raised by his mother, Gloria Carter. Like he said in a lot of his autobiographical songs, Jay-z was involved with a lot of drug dealings and gun violence.^[source?] Jay-Z went to Eli Whitney High School, in Brooklyn, and this is where he met the well-known Notorious B.I.G.^[source?]

The Begininng

Jay started to rap at very young.^[source?] He though it was away to escape from violence, drug and poverty. At the age of 20, Shawn met Jay-O, who was an old performer. He was a sort of mentor for him. He recorded with him a song called “The Originator”. This Song gave them the opportunity to go on the “YO!Mtv raps show and this was the first step to glory for Shawn. After this show he had to find a name stage. He decides Jay-Z, to thanks Jay-O, but also at high school he used to be call “Jazzy”. Jay-Z had a good start, but he wasn’t enough mainstream to be a star of hip-hop, so he decide to create his own label record with two of his friend called the Roc-A-Fella Records. His career took a step higher, in 1998, when he won his first Grammy with his song Hard-Knock-Life. From 1998 to 2003, Jay-Z produce a lots of good songs and album, but his most famous album was The Blueprint. It was claim by the critics to be one of the albums of the decade. He was now consider as one of the biggest in the game.

The expension of the Empire

In 2003, Jay-Z stopped to do rap, because he found that they weren’t enough good rapper to compete with him. He said that the game was too easy for him. He decided to concentrate more on his producer career than his rap career. He became the president of Def Jam Recordings. He signed a lot of great artist such as Rihana, Ne-yo and Jeezy. He also helps the great rapper Kayne West. He also became a real business man by creating his own clothes company Rocawear and owning a part of the New Jersey Nets a Basketball franchise.

Nowadays

After a step back in his career, He decided in 2006 to comeback in the game. He did the album Kingdom Came and the year after American Gangster. In 2010, he released Blue print 3, but in 2011 he teamed up with Kayne to do one of his best albums Watch the throne. This album went triple hit, made the top rap charts for august and also nominated for the Grammy for the best rap Album. Now, he is known to be one of the best rapper of all time. He also takes a part of Barack Obama’s last elections..

Sources

www.biography.com/people/jay-z-507696?page=1