A Brief History of Things Jay-Z Has Tried To Sell Us

He's not a businessman, he's a ... you know the rest.

July 3, 2013

Image via Complex Original

On July 4th, 2013, America will celebrate its 237th birthday, and its 12th Jay-Z album.

Magna Carta Holy Grail is coming. Will it be good? Can it ever possibly outrun its own marketing? (I'm assuming) none of that matters to Jay-Z. "Creative aspirations are for poor people and Kanye West," Jay-Z (probably) said during a production meeting he was holding inside of Mt. Olympus with Mike Dean and Beezlebub and several of Chief Keef's play cousins. What (I'm assuming) matters is that MCHG will arrive here like no other album in history has: With a big, fat "Platinum" stamped across its forehead, digital copies having already been purchased a million times over in a deal negotiated between Jay and Samsung.

Jay-Z is, to be sure, one of the greatest salesman in American historty. And he has made lots and lots of money. A half a billion dollars worth of money.* His Marcy Project bear paw prints are on NBA teams, computers, beer, fireworks, vagina scrubs, stylish yarmulkes for trendy Jewish teenagers, and maybe probably 600 other products. In hindsight, his success seems less like the work of Darwinian evolution and more like the ceaseless hand of inevitably. On the pages that follow, a list of 20 things that he's tried to sell us since way back when he released his first album in 1948.

(*Technically, Jay-Z's the second richest rapper of all. Diddy, whose estimated net worth is at a stout $580 million, is $80 million richer. Still, Jay rates about a billion times higher on the I Wish I Was Him scale than Diddy. It probably has something to do with Diddy's dolphin** teeth.)

**I miss Chappelle Show. :'(

Written by Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano)

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Samsung Phones

Was He Successful?: Seems so.

I don't imagine Samsung has ever been talked about as much as they have been lately, which probably translates into a win. I might be wrong on this. I don't know. I just switched from Motorola to a PrimeCo. phone.

The Idea That Autotune Was "Dead" in 2009

Was He Successful?: No.

Um, Future and all of his No. 1 singles would like to have a word with you, Hov.

Crack

Was He Successful?: Dude.

Crack? You're selling it? Like, but you mean as in CRACK crack? Because...

Throwbacks...Then Not Throwbacks!

Was He Successful?: Yes. Fucker.

"Come on the track, duh-duh-da-da, with a throwback jersey and a fitted on." –Jay-Z, "Jigga That Nigga"

Cool. Thanks. Just paid $250 for this Artis Gilmore throwback! Yippee!

"Fuck a throwback jersey 'cause we on to the next one." –Jay-Z, "On To The Next One"

Come on! [Burns wardrobe.]

That He Has An "Actual" Baby With Beyonce Named "Blue Ivy"

Was He Successful?: No.

No fucking way. Dollars to cents, little Blue Ivy is some sort of advanced cryo-robot superweapon. Guaranteed there's a manila folder in a secured file cabinet somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon with "B.L.U.E. I.V.Y." written across the lip in red permanent marker. Inside there are all sorts of schematics and launch codes and shit, I just know it. Fuck what you're talking about: When WWIII starts, B.L.U.E. I.V.Y. is going to be responsible for the first nuclear megaboom. The missile will probably launch right out of her stroller.

Amil

Was He Successful?: Not even a little bit.

Remember Amil, the first woman Roc-A-Fella signed (late '90s-ish)? Jay spent the better part of a year or two trying to convince everybody she was a rap dynamo. Hand to God, if you search "Amil" on Google Images right now, you'll find a shirtless muscular black man with cornrows and especially aggressive nipples, a forlorn white guy painted gold, a picture of J.D. from Scrubs (he's been given a lazy eye), and a milk cartoon with "Missing" written across the top and a picture of Amil pasted on. She was supposed to be Girl Jay-Z. She ended up being Girl Memphis Bleek. Speaking of...

Memphis Bleek

Was He Successful?: No.

Memphis Bleek? You're selling him as a rap star? You know you can't just say someone is a star and then it happens, right? Memphis Bleek? Like, but you mean as in MEMPHIS BLEEK Memphis Bleek? Because...

The Blueprint III

Was He Successful?: Yes. :-/

I mean, I bought it.

A Jay Electronica Album...PSYCHE!

Was He Successful?: Yeah right. Badu got her talons in him. No coming back from that, not even with an extra heavy dose of Jay-Z mysticism spray.

KNOCK, KNOCK. Who's there? JAY ELECTRONICA. Jay Electronica who? [silence] Jay Electronica who? [silence] Hello? [silence]

That He Would Be Forever Macking

Was He Successful?: Yes. Whoops.

Maybe the most famous line from 2000's megasmash "Big Pimpin'" featuring UGK. This was back before he became obscenely rich, so all of the women were probably still having a hard time getting over his face (is why he took he this stance, would be my guess). Like, I was the same way in high school. I was heavy on my "Nah, homie. I ain't ever falling in love" movement through almost all of 9th grade. But then Griselda K. let me touch her boobs and that shit was a wrap, yo. Big simpin'.

Rocawear

Was He Successful?: For a time.

Has anybody ever even asked for a Rocawear pants suede jumpsuit or jean jacket or whatthefuck ever before? Like, bro, I'm pretty sure Santa Claus is at the north pole right now hellllllllllla pissed off at all of the Rocawear clothes he ordered in 1999 thinking people were gonna ask for them for Christmas. I bet the elves have to wear that shit just so it doesn't go to waste. And I bet an elf in a pair of Rocawear is basically the funniest thing of all.

Lyrics By Other Artists

Was He Successful?: Yes, somehow.

Biggie. Bun-B. Ice-T. Maybe just watch this.

Nets Tickets

Was He Successful?: Nope.

Late last year, a 31-year-old homemaker and mother of three from Newark named Patricia Taylor was in her living room with her youngest son, Michael Jr. They were working in an armed forces coloring book; her husband, Michael Sr., a handsome, humble, courageous soldier and compassionate and caring father and husband, was serving out the last two months of a four-year tenure in Iraq, and Michael Jr. enjoyed nothing more than coloring army men. There was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Taylor stood up, walked over and opened it. Two high ranking military officials were standing there, their faces hard and pulled toward the earth. She started to cry before they even began to talk. "Ma'am," one of them said, "we have some bad news." "No, no, no!" she shouted. "No! Don't tell me! No!"

He continued: "Ma'am, it's your husband. He's dead. I'm sorry." She looked up. "What?" she asked. "He died in combat, ma'am. His face, his arms, his legs, they were all blown off by an IED. He's not coming home." She smiled and wiped her eyes clean. "Oh thank God," she said relieved. "I thought you were going to tell me I'd received Nets tickets."

That He Owned a Meaningful Percentage of the Brooklyn Nets Organization

Was He Successful?: Yeah, curiously enough.

Dude. I'm saying, Jay-Z owned the Nets the way that a special-ed kid is on the basketball team. He hung around the gym and everyone knew he was basically involved and sometimes he got to wear a jersey and everyone in the community just loved it, but, I mean, come on. We knew. We were all just hoping he didn't fall down during the game.

Water to a Well

Was He Successful?: Yes, but by default.

Re: The line "I could sell water to a well" from 2001's "U Don't Know": I mean, I wouldn't figure that this is so great of a feat, considering that a well needs water for it to be a well and not just a hole in the ground, a bucket, and rope. If he'd have sold them, say, a Hyundai Accent, then that'd be pretty impressive. Or if he sold the well an XBOX and it already had an XBOX that it never really played anyway, that'd be impressive too. But water? To a well? "Hey, can I interest you in this thing that if you don't have it you'll cease to exist as the thing that it is that you were built to exist as?" That's, you know, that's a pretty easy sale.

HP Computers

Was He Successful?: Probably not.

I own an HP. I paid $740 for it. It's a perfectly fine machine. I'm certain I'll buy another. It won't be because Jay-Z told me to though. He's just not the first person I think of when I think of computers. He's not even the first rapper I think of when I think of computers. (DMX, of course. I think I watched that video of him operating a laptop for the first time about maybe 5,000 times. He makes a lot of the faces I imagine the first person to see someone arrive from the future is going to make.)

Iceberg Clothing

Was He Successful?: Please click back to the Rocawear slide.

Please click back to the Rocawear slide.

Issues of the Robb Report

Was He Successful?: Nope-ers.

In 2002, Jay-Z curiously spouted, "You niggas ain't know about a Robb Report," referencing a high end magazine that nobody that listens to Jay-Z even knew existed. No joke, the magazine was originally called Twentieth Century Confederates. I've never seen an issue, but I assume it's printed up on paper made from the skin of white supermodels that have aged past 24-years-old. Alas, I'll never know. You know what the last magazine I bought was about? Lowriders. Do you know what it was called? Lowriders, motherfucker. And it had a picture of a Lowrider on the cover. Poor people don't have time to figure shit out.