Best Pop Singers of 21st Century (No. 16)

With the primary quarter of the twenty first century coming to a detailed, Billboard is spending the following few months counting down our employees picks for the 25 best pop stars of the final 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22, No. 21, No. 20, No. 19, No. 18 and No. 17 stars, and now we bear in mind the century in Jay-Z — who redesigned crossover hip-hop stardom in his picture and have become one of many largest popular culture icons of your complete century.

The very best shouldn’t be all the time the best-selling. Take the Porsche 911: Thought-about by many specialists and followers alike to be pound-for-pound one of the best sports activities automobile cash should buy, the rear-engined coupe sells solely a fraction of what America’s primary pony automobile, the Ford Mustang, sells. Regardless of its motor being within the fallacious place, the 911 is regarded as the platonic preferrred of a sports activities automobile. It will possibly do all of it: ship a transcendent driving expertise, win prestigious motor races, do the weekly chore run, ferry a (small) household round, and look cool when parked on the block. As an alternative of introducing radical new concepts each mannequin yr, Porsche has labored to intensely refine and ideal the 911 over the course of its 75-year run.  

The closest factor hip-hop has to the Porsche 911 is Brooklyn’s personal Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. All through his storied three-decade profession, Jay-Z by no means reached the industrial heights of a few of his contemporaries however, very similar to the 911, he represented the platonic preferrred of what a rapper ought to and might be – together with as a crossover star, who was in a position to have main hits and high 40-level success with out ever actually altering who he was or sounding like he was actively chasing any of it. 

Hitting the scene in earnest in 1996 along with his debut album Affordable Doubt, Jay shared underworld tales and avenue information in a cool unaffected method that made it appear as if he was letting you in on a secret. With Dying Row and Dangerous Boy dominating the charts within the mid-’90s, Jay labored to carve out a lane for himself because the man who had one foot on the block and one foot within the boardroom. After not discovering high-level industrial success along with his debut, Jay recruited the crew behind his buddy The Infamous B.I.G.’s basic albums to create In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. Debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, Vol. 1. boasted minor hits in “The Metropolis Is Mine” and “(All the time Be My) Sunshine” however proved that Jay had the propensity to make music that appealed to each radio program administrators and true hip-hop heads.  

However the actual breakthrough got here with 1998’s Vol. 2… Arduous Knock Life. This time round there was no big-name government producer, simply Jay-Z and his Roc-A-Fella companions Dame Sprint and Kareem “Biggs” Burke. The star of the present was the 45 King-produced, Annie-sampling “Arduous Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” that peaked at No. 15 on the Sizzling 100, turning into Jay-Z’s largest hit up till that time and pushing Vol 2. to be Jay’s first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. Out of the blue the hustler from Marcy Tasks was now not toiling away within the shadow of NYC’s towering MCs — he was now considered one of its brightest stars. Over the following 4 years Jay-Z proved success does certainly beget success. He launched the careers of some profitable rap stars below his Roc-A-Fella imprint and stretched his incomes potential with new clothes and liquor endeavors. However regardless of all that — in addition to a bevy of rap hits and back-to-back Billboard 200 No. 1 albums — Jay’s finest days have been nonetheless far forward of him.  

The brand new millennium obtained off to a loopy begin for Jay, as he related with the Neptunes for the primary time for the lead single of what was alleged to be a label compilation album. The enjoyable and uproarious “I Simply Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)” turned Jay’s first single to high the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and peaked at No. 11 on the Sizzling 100. The track was so large it reportedly impressed Britney Spears to faucet the Virginia Seashore-based manufacturing duo to work on her Britney album. The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (2000 –) additionally served a higher function nonetheless for the younger rap mogul: It set the groundwork for what would change into one of the best album of his profession. Featured on Dynasty have been three then-unknown producers – Ye (then Kanye West), Bink! and Simply Blaze — who gave Jay a bunch of sample-based beats that have been shimmering, soulful and gritty suddenly. That sound would go on to anchor Jay’s sixth album, The Blueprint.   

In 2001, Jay was combating battles on a number of fronts. He was taking verbal fireplace from NYC artists — Nas, Prodigy, and Jadakiss — who have been none too pleased with Jay’s declare to be the King of New York. And he was combating two felony instances: one for unlawful gun possession and one for assault. Throughout all that, Jay absconded to Miami to file what would change into his magnum opus. Legend goes that Jay heard the beats and was so impressed he recorded the album in lower than every week. The end result can be a venture that utterly reordered the pantheon of rap greats: Positive, Affordable Doubt is taken into account a basic, however the wider world didn’t take discover of it till years later. With The Blueprint, everybody knew instantly that Jay-Z had made one of the best rap album anybody had heard in years. From the scathing diss observe “Takeover” to the tender “Track Cry” — and a pair of irresistible ‘00s pop-rap staples within the triumphant “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and the hilariously impolite “Women, Women, Women” — The Blueprint, as Noah Callahan-Bever wrote, turned simply that: “The whole lot an awesome rap album ought to be, and, maybe as importantly, nothing that it shouldn’t be.”  

All through his profession, Jay all the time checked out himself as greater than a rapper. Sure, he additionally claimed to be a hustler, however he extra so noticed himself as an enterprise. The well-known bar wouldn’t come till 2005 when he hopped on a remix to Ye’s “Diamonds” file—in Jay’s eyes he’s not merely a businessman, he’s a enterprise, man. And that sentiment actually started to indicate within the early 2000s: A lot so he felt he’d outgrown his function as a rapper to the purpose that he determined to retire, dropping a farewell venture in The Black Album. And why not? By then he felt he had all of it: He had 5 consecutive No. 1 albums, Roc-A-Fella was chugging alongside simply properly — and, in his immortal phrases, he had “the most popular chick within the sport” sporting his chain in Beyoncé. He’d simply scored two of his largest pop hits thus far alongside the then-burgeoning pop/R&B diva: His No. 3-peaking “03 Bonnie & Clyde” from overstuffed sequel album The Blueprint 2: The Present and the Curse, and her “Loopy in Love,” the Sizzling 100-topping breakout hit from Bey’s Dangerously in Love that set her on the trail to all-time solo greatness. Issues couldn’t be going higher.  

However what different rapper might have made your complete world care about their retirement? He made tradition cease. Followers truly mourned his profession! We’d by no means seen somebody exit on high; on their very own phrases. Particularly after making what gave the impression to be all the precise strikes. It was no marvel the documentary he made concerning the making of his “final” album – 2004’s Fade to Black, which additionally captured his “retirement occasion” live performance at New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard, bringing hip-hop to the World’s Most Well-known Area at a time when it not often obtained to command such levels — was itself successful.  

After all, he couldn’t depart the sport alone, and wound up returning three years and a Def Jam Presidential stint later with the forgettable Kingdom Come. Tapping his traditional record of producers to craft his comeback particular, Jay suffered his first nice misstep: He underestimated simply how a lot the rap sport had moved on within the time he was away. The South, and Atlanta particularly, was now the dominant drive in rap– a actuality helped deliver forth by signing Younger Jeezy to Def Jam. And with youthful guys like T.I. in a position to seamlessly circulation between dirty avenue data and huge aperture radio hits, Jay’s try felt, nicely, previous. It didn’t assist that he himself was fighting easy methods to be a rapper touching 40 years previous.  

However Jay-Z’s true reward remained his capability to make folks imagine Jay-Z is the good particular person on the planet. His capability to promote that concept has helped him promote every part else. When, on Blueprint 3, he declared Auto-Tune lifeless on the late peak of its use inside hip-hop in 2009, most individuals mentioned “hm,” however went with it. (He had much less success with getting folks to cease sporting Timbs, however you possibly can’t win ‘em all.) Nonetheless, his coolness is what made his BP3 collaboration with Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Thoughts” — a track that would have fallen flat and tumbled into cringe within the palms of a lesser artist — his first track as a lead artist to hit No. 1 on the Sizzling 100, and an everlasting Large Apple anthem that even people who couldn’t title a second Jay-Z track nonetheless know a lot of the phrases to.  

One other reward has been his capability to align himself with the precise folks on the proper time. When he retired from rap and launched The Black Album, Jay launched a cappella variations of the album and let DJs and producers make new mash-up variations of the album. Hazard Mouse’s profession was birthed on the again of that launch when he blended it with beats sampling the Beatles’ White Album to create The Gray Album. That album additionally impressed Linkin Park and Jay to mix a few of their songs collectively to create a six-song EP known as Collision Course that wound up promoting 368,000 copies first week and profitable a Grammy for “Numb/Encore.”   

However Jay’s best collaborations would come years later. In 2011, he and his mentee Ye traversed the globe to file what would change into Watch the Throne. A completely immersive expertise, WTT spawned a roving artwork exhibit, a listening at NYC’s Hayden Planetarium, and a world tour that had them performing their smash hit “N—as In Paris” a number of occasions at each cease and 11 occasions in Paris. Lush, lavish, and splendid, Watch the Throne had was the cultural excessive level of the previous 24 years for each Jay-Z and Ye, positioning them each as not simply rap stars however popular culture titans.  

A number of years later, in 2014, Jay’s legend (and pop star bonafides) solely grew higher when he and his now-wife Beyoncé determined to crew up for what would change into the most effective excursions of the previous 25 years, with the On the Run Tour. Boasting 21 reveals throughout three nations, the all-stadium tour turned probably the most profitable in historical past, with $109 MM in ticket gross sales, based on Billboard Boxscore. It was so profitable, the duo re-upped and did it once more 4 years later. May Jay have headlined a solo stadium tour 18 years into his profession? Possibly, perhaps not. However the essential factor to recollect is that he did embark on international stadium excursions at a time in his profession when most rappers from his era wouldn’t have the option e-book midsize venues of their residence cities. 

Similar to the venerable 911, Jay’s sport was fixed enchancment. He didn’t promote like 50 Cent or Nelly or Eminem at their respective peaks. The one time he was in a position to promote 1,000,000 in every week – form of — was when he made a cope with Samsung to pre-load his Magna Carter…Holy Grail album on their telephones, giving him a platinum plaque earlier than it even hit shops. However his stranglehold on popular culture and his affect on cultural traits was unmatched (bear in mind when he advised everybody to not drive a BMW X5 and everybody, even individuals who couldn’t afford one within the first place, listened?). Nobody, in addition to Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Ye again when his title was nonetheless Kanye, has been in a position to have an effect on the industrial choices of younger music followers as a lot as Jay had.  

Don’t take our phrase for it, although. Hearken to Jay on the finish of “What Extra Can I Say”:

The soul of a hustler, I actually ran the streets/A CEO’s thoughts, that advertising and marketing plan was me/ And no I ain’t get shot up an entire bunch of occasions/ Or make up s—t in an entire bunch of strains / And I ain’t animated, like say, a Busta Rhymes/ However the actual s—t you get while you bust down my strains/ Add that to the very fact I went plat’ a bunch of occasions/ Occasions that by my affect on popular culture/ I alleged to be primary on everyone’s record.

Learn extra concerning the Biggest Pop Stars of the twenty first Century right here — and remember to test again on Tuesdsay when our No. 15 artist is revealed!