Life and Times of Shawn Carter - Jay Z

End Of The Year Artist Tribute
This issue marks the end of our first year in regular circulation and our first celebrated artist.  Each year we will select an artist who has been a consistent subject of comment, debate and praise among students and academics alike.  Our focus is on artists who were part of many students’ four-year academic experiences. We have reviewed debates, arguments, praise, rumors, reviews, surveys and more. Many artists made the final list, but the one person who seemed to be everyone’s soundtrack and inspiration was Jay Z.

Next spring we will ask you to participate directly in this selection and we will include other category of artists as well.  But for now we hope you enjoy our celebration of the work of Mr. Shawn Corey Carter.

Take a look at a timeline that we have compiled that features a number of music videos from various eras of Jay-Z's career.

Deeper: How To Read A Lyric

Staple Crops has released their first Rap Data Pack, and it focuses on Jay-Z. It includes the raw data from Hov's complete body of work: word count, readability, release dates, Geo Codes, etc..

The Black Youth Project's Rap Lyrics Database lets you search through lyrics of Billboard Music's top rap songs from 1989 to February 2009 in three different ways: (1) by the list of songs that appeared on the charts for 20 weeks or more (indicating heavy radio and video play), (2) by only the number one songs from the Rap charts, or (3) both lists at the same time.

 
Take a look at our Jay Z bibliography. It can be found in the "Featured" section of our Hiphop University Bibliography on www.hiphoparchive.org.

Watch this video montage of some of BK's most notable MCs and cultural landmarks.