His real name is Shawn Corey Carter. The name Jay-Z evolved from the nickname of his childhood, when he was called "Jazzy." Jay-Z is also an homage to his musical mentor, Jaz-O, as well as to the J/Z subway lines that have a stop where he grew up, Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn. He is also known by a variety of stage names including S. Carter, Jigga, Hova, J-Hova, Hov, and Young Hov.
Jay-Z broke Elvis Presley's record for most #1 albums by a solo artist when The Blueprint 3 hit the top in 2009, giving him 11 chart-toppers. He extended the record to 14 with his 2017 album 4:44, but Taylor Swift tied him in 2024 when The Tortured Poets Department hit the top spot.
After announcing his retirement from rapping in 2003, Jay-Z embarked on a number of business projects and turned into one of the most successful entrepreneurs among hip-hop artists. His Reebok S.Carter shoe collection became the fastest selling sneaker in Reebok history and the first time a non-athlete has ever had a signature shoe. Oh, and he didn't really retire - his next album, Kingdom Come, was released in 2006.
He was invited to headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2008. This caused a public furor, mainly fueled by Noel Gallagher from Oasis, who slammed organizers for inviting a rap star to a festival "built on a tradition of guitar music." Jay-Z responded by opening his headline set with a cover of Oasis' "
Wonderwall."
Jay-Z and his wife Beyoncé topped the Forbes magazine list of Hollywood's top-earning couples in 2009 and again in 2010, acing out fellow power duos Brangelina, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, and David and Victoria Beckham.
In an interview with NPR, Jay shared how he began putting down rhymes: "I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook. As I got further and further away from home and my notebook, I had to memorize these rhymes - longer and longer and longer. By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn't need pen or paper - my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape"
Jay-Z,
Busta Rhymes and Biggie Smalls all attended Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn, New York at the same time.
Jay revealed during a Twitter conversation in 2013 that he hasn't eaten breakfast cereal for a while, but if he had to choose a favorite, he would pick Captain Crunch. "Berry Crunch," to be exact.
Hova announced on July 18, 2013 that he was dropping his hyphen and was now known as Jay Z. According to the rapper, he actually dropped the dash three years earlier to "change with the times."
The hyphen unceremoniously returned in 2017 when he released his album 4:44. Our guess is that having two variations of his name floating around caused some kinks in his accounting.
Jay was involved in selling crack cocaine during his teen years, before he took up rapping. Asked by Vanity Fair November 2013 whether he felt guilty about selling crack, Jay replied: "Not until later, when I realized the effects on the community. I started looking at the community on the whole, but in the beginning, no. I was thinking about surviving. I was thinking about improving my situation. I was thinking about buying clothes."
Jay-Z often writes songs about his tough early days living in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects. On his 1997 cut "You Must Love Me," for instance, Hova describes the day he shot his drug-addicted older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. He was only 12 years old at the time.
Empire co-creator Danny Strong based the show's character Lucious Lyon on Jay Z, drawing from his past criminal life and rise to stardom through hip-hop.
Speaking to David Letterman during an April 2018 episode of his Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Jay-Z revealed how a teacher, Renee Lowden, encouraged his love of words.
"I had a sixth grade teacher, her name was Ms. Lowden, and I just loved the class so much," he recalled. "I'd read the dictionary and just (because of) my love of words, I just connected with her."
"In the sixth grade, I was reading on a 12th-grade level," Jay-Z added in a CBS interview with Gayle King. "That excited me. 'Cause everyone was excited. And Ms. Lowden, she was excited. It felt like me riding my bike at 4, the way people reacted to that."
In 2019, Forbes declared him the first billionaire rapper, with his champagne company, Armand de Brignac, worth $310 million, and his cognac company, D'Ussé, at $100 million. His art collection was valued at $70 million.
Jay-Z stabbed record executive Lance "Un" Rivera at the December 1, 1999 release party for Q-Tip's album Amplified. He plunged a 5-inch blade into his stomach over rumors Rivera was behind the bootlegging of Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter. Hova later pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, accepting a three-year probation sentence.
