Richard Perry/The New York Times Jay-Z performing at Barclays Center in 2012.This week we look at the three big hip-hop hit albums of the summer, which appeared in a clump: Kanye West’s “Yeezus†and J. Cole’s “Born Sinner,†released June 18, and Jay-Z’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail,†released July 4, with a million copies pre-sold to Samsung as part of a promotion for its Galaxy smartphone. (The Recording Industry Association of America quickly certified “Magna Carta†as platinum; Billboard magazine is withholding that designation until the record sels a million the old fashioned way.)
J. Cole’s record has so far outsold Mr. West’s, and perhaps that makes sense: “Yeezus†is harsh and provocative and “Born Sinner†goes down easy. But in other ways it would seem to contradict what and who matters most in pop. Meanwhile, “Magna Carta†re-treads a fair number of old Jay-Z tropes; the most significant frontier it breaches might be the privacy of his fans, many of whom gave up their personal account data to order the album through the Samsung app. Music critics Ben Ratliff and Jon Caramanica, straight from a Jay-Z video shoot disguised as a performance-art piece â€" or vice versa? â€" sort it all out with their colleague Jon Pareles.
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Jon Pareles on “Magna Carta Holy Grailâ€
Jon Pareles on Jay-Z’s data collection
Jon Caramanica’s interview with Kanye West
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it here.)
