Jay-Z
Person
Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, businessman, and record executive. Rooted in East Coast hip-hop, Jay-Z is known for his complex lyricism that often uses double entendres, wordplay, and braggadocio—built on a rags to riches narrative. In 2023, Billboard and Vibe ranked him as the greatest rapper of all time. According to Forbes, he is the wealthiest music artist in history, worth an estimated US$2.8 billion as of 2026. A protégé of fellow New York City-based rapper Jaz-O, Jay-Z began recording music in the late 1980s. He co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records in 1994 to release his first two studio albums, Reasonable Doubt (1996) and In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997), both of which were critically acclaimed. His 11 subsequent albums, including The Blueprint (2001), The Black Album (2003), American Gangster (2007), and 4:44 (2017), have each debuted atop the Billboard 200. Jay-Z has a total of 14 number-one albums on the chart, the t…