Tom Ford

Album: Magna Carta... Holy Grail (2013)
Charted: 39
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is an ode to the New York fashion designer, Tom Ford, who was Gucci's creative director for ten years from 1994 and is credited with turning around the fashion house. Jay has been known to rock Ford's suits at several prestigious events as well as wearing the designer's garments head-to-toe in the video for "Suit and Tie."
  • Jay previously referenced the New York designer when he rapped "This is truffle season. Tom Ford tuxedos for no reason" on Justin Timberlake's "Suit and Tie."
  • The song appropriates MIA's vocal cadence from the British rapper's 2012 "Bad Girls" single.
  • The song features an uncredited Beyoncé at the close of the track.
  • Ford was unsurprisingly thrilled about being name checked by Hova. "I am completely flattered," the designer told Billboard magazine. "I mean, come on, who would not want a Jay-Z song named after them?"
  • When Timbaland came up with the song's instrumentation, he also added a hook as a reference. The beatmaker's chorus was interpolated from a line off "Holy Grail" - "Riding by in the big body, curtains all in my window" - rather than the simple "Tom Ford," repeated three times, that Jay chants on the released version of the song.

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