Immediately following the BET awards, fans got to see the world premiere of Jay Z’s “Death of Auto-Tune” video. Jamie Foxx premiered it on the awards post show saying, “Death to auto-tune except for me. That damn ‘Blame It ‘ is doing some things…Jigga gotta give me a pass!”
The video opens in a dark alley with a vintage car pulling up and Jay in the back seat. Lyor Cohen, the head of Warner music group makes a cameo in the video as his driver, and salutes Jay as he walks into an old abandoned warehouse. Inside he performs with a live band and it cuts to shot of a gold chain with the letter “A” on it for auto tune that then explodes. Just as he raps about rapper’s “colors being too bright,” a rack of clothing explodes in a diss to gaudy rappers everywhere. The legendary actor Harvey Keitel is shown playing cards with him in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant and Jay leaves to play basketball with LeBron. Who else but Jay Z could do that? Jigga ends the video by getting the infamous “Blueprint fro” cut off while smoking a cigar signaling that the Blueprint 3 is finally complete. D.O.A. keeps things simple and lays down the blueprint for rappers everywhere. Step your game up, auto-tune is dead.
