The rollout of Jay Z's 14th studio album 4:44 featured an array of mysterious ads, which New Jersey prog rock band 4:44 probably enjoyed immensely. Because their name is 4:44.
Marketing and branding can play a huge role in music industry success, and when one of the biggest rappers in the world releases an album that shares your band's name, there's an opportunity to capitalize. So even though they had just released their project Cardinal at the end of June, when Jay Z unveiled his plans for 4:44, the band decided to drop an EP titled Jay-Z. And IÂ am definitely here for this.
I mean Jay Z isn't even on Spotify or Apple Music, so if you're a rising band named 4:44 you've got to take advantage of the moment and get those plays however you can, right? It's like how Soulja Boy used to upload his songs on Limewire but title them "In Da Club" or "Brittney Spears" and people who downloaded them would instead get "Crank That." Gotta get it how you can.Â
The band admits the whole thing is a "shameless marketing technique," and look, here I am writing about it. So great job 4:44. Also I'm not mad at the music and have been lowkey rocking out for the past hour. "Blood Red Moon" is a trip and "Hallelujah" is a jam. Check out more from 4:44 below.Â
