-> 

v

When there’s a discussion about who the greatest rappers of all-time are, one of the names that gets brought up frequently is Jay-Z. Born as Shawn Carter, Jay-Z has been massively famous since the 1990s, and is now a business mogul on top of his musical work that has made him a billionaire. Now in his 50s, things are going great for Jay-Z, who is also married to one of the other biggest names in all of music and has three children.

 -> 

v

Things weren’t always easy for Jay-Z, though, who was born on December 4, 1969 in New York City, growing up in the borough of Brooklyn. Jay-Z was raised around a lot of drugs and crime, living in a dangerous neighborhood. Growing up, he got into rapping freestyle music, and started to record music on his own. Jay-Z was selling his CDs from his trunk, and decided to make his own record label while landing a distribution deal with a major one.

This opened the door for Jay-Z to release his debut mainstream album called “Reasonable Doubt” in 1996. The album was a hit with more than 1.5 million copies sold, with his first top 50 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 (and top five on the US Rap charts) being “Dead Presidents”. Jay-Z spent the rest of the 1990s with three albums from the “In My Lifetime” series, including “Hard Knock Life” and “Life and Times of S. Carter”.

 -> 

v

Some of the biggest songs from this time included “Can I Get A…”, “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “Big Pimpin”. Jay-Z’s hot streak continued into the early 2000s with another trio of albums, all of which reached the number one spot. “Izzo”, “Excuse Me Miss” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” were among his biggest hits from this era.

In 2002, Jay-Z recorded the song “03 Bonnie & Clyde”, collaborating with singer Beyonce Knowles for the first time, and they’d record multiple songs together. The two entered into a relationship shortly thereafter, though it would be a long time before they came out to the public about their status. Eventually, in 2008, Beyonce and Jay-Z would get married, making them perhaps the biggest couple in all of music.

 -> 

v

Of course, when a couple is that famous, there’s always going to be intrigue when there’s a baby on the way. That’s why it became headline news around the world when Beyonce announced that she was pregnant in 2011. In the first week of the following year, the couple welcomed their first child when Blue Ivy Carter was born.

People have said that Jay-Z was going to make sure that his daughter had everything that he didn’t have while growing up, getting her a lot of lavish gifts. “Nothing’s been too big or expensive for their little princess,” a source said. “They wanted her first birthday to set the tone for the rest of her life. They work hard for their money and the first thing they want to spend it on is their baby girl.”

 -> 

v

With that, Blue Ivy got a lot of presents for her first birthday. One of the flashier things that Jay-Z had purchased for his daughter was a Barbie doll. This one really stood out, though, as it cost him $80,000 and was covered in diamonds. It was estimated that the one year old child received more than $1.5 million worth of gifts in total. For most of us, we won’t even sniff one percent of that in a lifetime.

In the years that he’s been with Beyonce, Jay-Z has released several more albums, including 2003’s “The Black Album” which some have referred to as the greatest in rap history. There have been five more albums since then, most recently with “4:44” in 2017. It became the 11th straight album for Jay-Z to reach number one. There have been plenty of top 10 songs during this time, as well, including “Swagga Like Us”, “Empire State of Mind” and “Holy Grail”.

 -> 

v

On top of his music, Jay-Z has plenty of other business ventures that have kept him busy. He’s had his hand in sports, restaurants, clothing and much more. Because of this, Jay-Z is one of the rare musicians that has been able to achieve billionaire status with his estimated net worth. “I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning,” Jay-Z said. “So I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.” Like he says, “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.”