He kept adding songs into this playlist, so I made pieces of music out of all of it. My philosophy was scoring his reality, his lifestyle and his taste. I asked him: “What do you listen to? Because I’ll sample some of it.” He gave me this playlist and we began to make pieces of music out of the music that he listened to. Jay posted a playlist of songs that inspired “4:44.” What were some of the musical touchstones for your production? It was almost like a therapy session for all of us. That was the core creation process: conversation, ideas in the morning, treadmill, coming in to talk about it and then we’d lace something or not lace something. He would get on the treadmill and sketch out ideas. After that, every other day I would send him three to four new ideas. I sat with him and played him maybe 70 ideas.
What kind of beats did you present to him initially? We have 12 albums, why 13? I had to know that I could be of assistance to pull things out of him. As a producer, I said, “How do I score that thought?” I wanted to see something new happen. He said, “I want to do an album where I talk about the things that I’ve never talked about.” He told me he wanted to open up and give people more.
What were your initial conversations like with Jay about what would become “4:44”? These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Over the phone from Los Angeles, the producer - who was named executive vice president of Capitol Music Group in June - discussed pushing Jay-Z to new emotional places, how he chose samples, the influence of “Lemonade” and Beyoncé’s role in recording. “We did that maybe Monday?” No I.D., 46, said with a laugh. Its tools enable rights-holders to not only protect content, but also investigate the behavior of consumers of illegal content – even connecting with them and redirecting them to official channels.“4:44” was recorded largely at No I.D.’s Hollywood studio beginning in December and wasn’t finished until very recently (hence the line on “Family Feud” about Al Sharpton’s freshly viral summer selfies).
#JAY Z 444 PLAYLIST SERIES#
The rapper has admitted he was left bemused by the TIDAL exclusivity of 4:44… and so a friend ‘bootlegged’ it for him.īritish startup MUSO has just raised $3.2m (£2.5m) in a Series A funding from Harwell Capital. One thing we know for sure: Snoop Dogg was amongst the near-million people who obtained 4:44 illegally over the weekend.
“According to Billboard, Drake’s album sold a combined figure of 505K sales in its first week, clearly losing significant share to illegal downloads.” “It’s clear that there’s always a significant audience proactively searching for content illegally – and a big opportunity for content owners to engage with this audience and direct them to licensed channels,” said Chatterley. Unlike 4:44, More Life was officially released on a range of services, including both Apple Music and Deezer.Īndy Chatterley, CEO and Co-Founder at MUSO, suggested that Drake’s bigger numbers might “suggest that piracy is not as dependent on exclusive windowing as we may believe” – but also pointed out that it may simply be influenced by Drake’s comparative modern-day global popularity. Other MUSO data shows that Drake’s album-come-playlist More Life was illegally downloaded 1.32m times in its opening three days back in March, with 38% of activity in the US, 7% in Canada and 5% in the UK. The UK was the second biggest contributor with a 5% share.Īre these figures the direct result of the TIDAL exclusivity of 4:44 – which remains unavailable on the likes of Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer and iTunes? Some 56% of these downloads took place in the US, says MUSO’s data. How do we know? Not because of stats from TIDAL and Sprint, who have been handed the LP as an exclusive release (for now, anyway).īut because of data from piracy sites like The Pirate Bay and KickAssTorrents.Īccording to piracy monitoring and analytics specialist MUSO, 4:44 was illegally downloaded just under a million times ( 971,196) in its opening 72 hours on the market. The confessional nature of 4:44 has even led some to suggest it’s something of an ideal companion piece to Beyonce’s acclaimed Lemonade album.īut it’s not just popular with music reviewers – fans love it too. Jay-Z released his thirteenth solo album on Friday (June 30), and it’s been going down a storm with critics.