Songfacts®:

• Fear of failure, fatherhood, and wonderment are three of the things that inspired this song by Jay-Z about his daughter Blue Ivy. The rapper explained to producer Rick Rubin in a teaser video that many of the lyrics on Magna Carta Holy Grail were inspired by his baby girl and also his fears concerning his ability to be a good father, since his own dad left him at an early age.
• Hova once trademarked a shade of Jay-Z Blue paint and even rhymed about it on the remix to Jeezy's 2005 cut "Go Crazy" ("My favorite hue is Jay-Z blue"). The idea of mixing a color and patenting is not new. The French modernist artist, Yves Klein, started using his signature mixed blue in 1958.
• The song deploys a sampling of the Notorious B.I.G's cut "My Downfall" from his 1997 album Life After Death.
• This features soundbites from the 1981 biographical film about Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest. The movie depicted the abusive adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her actress mother.