Jay-Z: Encyclopedia II - Jay-Z - Commercial success

Jay-Z - Commercial success

In 1997, Jay-Z's follow-up, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, peaked at #3 on the Billboard album charts, and helped establish his career and mainstream success. In spite of the success, Jay-Z's image was tarnished by what his core audience perceived as pandering to mainstream audiences with a more pop-friendly sound. So Jay-Z released The Streets Is Watching, a straight-to-video movie, that showed that Jay was still as hard as ever. The next year, Jay-Z released Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life, continuing this evolution towards a pop-oriented market. Hard Knock Life debuted at #1 on the Billboard Charts and stayed there for five weeks on its way to selling over 5 million records. It included several huge singles, including "Can I Get A..." (featuring Ja Rule and Roc-a-Fella artist Amil), "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)," "Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originators '99)" (featuring Jaz-O and Amil), "It's Alright" and "Money Ain't a Thang" (with Jermaine Dupri). Vol. 2 was what established Jay-Z as one of the best rappers to emerge from the post Biggie-Tupac era along with Nas, who would later have a very important part in Jay-Z's career.

In 1999, Jay-Z released Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter (debuted #1), which was another big hit in spite of continued criticism for his pop-oriented sound, and a large roster of collaborators that many felt crowded out Jay-Z himself. His next album, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (debuted #1), was originally intended as a collaboration album with many guests from Roc-a-Fella's roster, including Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek and Amil, as well as Scarface, Just Blaze, R. Kelly, Kanye West, The Neptunes and Snoop Dogg.

2001's The Blueprint (debuted #1) is considered by many to be one of hip hop's classic albums. Released on September 11, 2001, the album managed to debut at #1, selling more than 450,000 albums in its first week despite being overshadowed by the September 11 attacks. Although it never surpassed Reasonable Doubt's status in the hip hop community, The Blueprint contained a balanced blend of soulful samples that had both street credibility and mainstream appeal, receiving recognition from both audiences. Eminem was the only guest artist on the album, producing and rapping on the track "Renegade." The Blueprint also includes "Izzo (HOVA)," a top ten hit, and "Takeover," a song which puts on blast rivals Prodigy of Mobb Deep and Nas. The latter responded to Jay-Z with both an underground single entitled "Stillmatic" and a track, "Ether," on his 2001 LP "Stillmatic. Stillmatic was seen as another classic album, recieving the coveted 5 mic rating from The Source, and the pair's resulting rivalry became one of the most talked-about subjects in the hip hop community. The feud between Jay-Z and Nas escalated, with Jay-Z even challenging Nas to a one-time $1,000,000 MC battle that never took place, but the two MCs ended their rivalry peacefully in 2005 in Jay-Z's "I Declare War" concert, in which they both performed hit songs from their respective careers.

Two side projects followed The Blueprint: a late 2001 MTV Unplugged album called Jay-Z: Unplugged (debuted #6) (featuring The Roots as Jay-Z's backing band), and a collaborative album with R. Kelly, The Best of Both Worlds (debuted #1), in 2002. Jay-Z's next solo album was 2002's The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse (debuted #1), a sprawling double-album which included the Top 10 single "'03 Bonnie & Clyde," a duet with his girlfriend, Beyoncé Knowles of Destiny's Child. The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse was later reissued in a single-disc version, The Blueprint 2.1, which retained half of the tracks from the double-album.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Commercial success", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki