Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. Widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he has been central to the creative and commercial success of artists including Kanye West, Rihanna, and J. Cole. He is the founder and chairman of entertainment company Roc Nation, and was the president and chief executive officer of Def Jam Recordings from 2004 to 2007.Born and raised in New York City, Jay-Z began his musical career in the late 1980s; he co-founded the record label Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995 and released his debut studio album Reasonable Doubt in 1996, which was met with critical praise. He has gone on to release twelve additional albums, including The Blueprint (2001), The Black Album (2003), American Gangster (2007), and 4:44 (2017). He released the collaborative album Watch the Throne with Kanye West in 2011 and Everything Is Love with his wife Beyoncé in 2018.

Through his business ventures, Jay-Z became the first hip-hop billionaire in 2019. In 1999, he founded Rocawear, a clothing retailer. In 2003, he founded 40/40 Club, a luxury bar chain. Both businesses grew to multi-million-dollar corporations, permitting him to launch Roc Nation in 2008. In 2015, he acquired the tech company Aspiro and led Tidal, the company’s media streaming service. In 2020, he launched Monogram, which sells a line of cannabis products. As of 2023, he is the wealthiest musical artist in the world with a net worth of US$2.5 billion, according to CNBC.

One of the world’s best-selling music artists with over 140 million records sold, Jay-Z has won 24 Grammy Awards, jointly with Kanye West the most Grammy awards of any rapper. Jay-Z holds the record for the most number-one albums (14) of any solo artist on the Billboard 200. He has been awarded the NAACP’s President’s Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Sports Emmy Award, been nominated for a Tony Award. Ranked by Billboard and Rolling Stone as one of the 100 greatest artists of all time, Jay-Z was the first rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the first solo living rapper inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2013, Time included him on its list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”.

Shawn Corey Carter was born on December 4, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City. He was raised in Marcy Houses, a public housing project in Brooklyn’s Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father, Adnis Reeves, abandoned the family, and Jay-Z and his three older siblings were raised by his mother, Gloria Carter. Reeves later met and reconciled with Jay-Z prior to his father’s death in 2003. Jay-Z claims in his lyrics that in 1982, at age 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry

He attended Eli Whitney High School and George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, both in Brooklyn, and then Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey. He did not graduate, dropping out during his sophomore year at Trenton Central High School. According to his interviews and lyrics, he sold crack cocaine and was shot at three times during this period. His former friend was sentenced to prison for possessing drugs and weapons.

According to his mother, Jay-Z used to wake up his siblings at night banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table. She bought him a boombox for his birthday, sparking his interest in music, and he began freestyling and writing lyrics.[35] Known as “Jazzy” around the neighborhood, he later adopted the stage name “Jay-Z” in homage to his mentor Jaz-O.

Jay-Z can be briefly heard on several of Jaz-O’s early recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including “H. P. Gets Busy”, “The Originators” and “Hawaiian Sophie”. Jay-Z became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990s. He first became known to a wide audience on the posse cut “Show and Prove” on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album Daddy’s Home. Jay-Z has been referred to as Big Daddy Kane’s hype man during this period, although Kane explains that he did not fill the traditional hype man role, and was instead basically making cameo appearances on stage. “When I would leave the stage to go change outfits, I would bring out Jay-Z and Positive K and let them freestyle until I came back to the stage.”

According to his second verse on “99 Problems”, released in 2003, Jay-Z was allegedly stopped by an NYPD detective in 1994 while en route to I-95, possibly for a search of drugs in his car. Detection dogs were called, but another police car had passed; Jay-Z was let go soon after. Jay-Z appeared on a popular song by Big L, “Da Graveyard”, and on Mic Geronimo’s “Time to Build”, which also featured early appearances by his former Murder Inc. colleagues Ja Rule and DMX in 1995. His first official rap single was “In My Lifetime”, which was released with an accompanying music video in 1995. An unreleased music video was also produced for the B-side “I Can’t Get with That.”