Yesterday (July 9), the rest of the world officially got their hands on Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter‘s latest studio album, Magna Carta, Holy Grail. The Roc Nation head honcho is capping off a pretty exciting time in his career that finds his cohorts succeeding (Yeezus and Born Sinner, respectively), his brand expanding (he netted $20 million with the Samsung deal), and his journey from drug dealer to billionaire businessman coming full circle. Brooklyn’s own has had two decades to reflect on many of the topics that are on display in Magna Carta, Holy Grail. His braggadocios claims, backed by Samsung ads, superstar friends and Rick Rubin’s bare feet have all added an element of hype to Lucky Lefty’s latest effort. But, as we all know, hype is commonly understood to be full of hot air and signifies nothing. Even with Jay’s promotional and marketing acumen, and, most recently, a Twitter Q&A — are music fans ready for this new brazen display of corporate greed disguised and packaged as a noble act by a living legend? While Jay-Z feels confident that his duality as a former Brooklyn bad guy turned “BBC” world leader will amount to another #1 (as of writing this, U.S. sales chart already claim Jay-Z will take the top spot with 350-400k sales) — other audiophiles just aren’t so sure. We scoured the Twitterverse to find out what the Internet thinks of Jay-Z’s latest gaudy, big-business offering, and found 15 critiques and reviews worth checking out. Will their opinion stop you from copping the album? Let us know in the comments below. Photo: XXL
