pics via TheMavenReport

The swag is strong…

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Photo By Nigel D.

“Well, after the tour, I’m going back home and we’ll look at it and see if I can start a project this year,” he said. “I would love to do it, to be honest with you. It would be a great thing to do when I come home from tour, but it’s vibe. I can’t say, ‘On this date this is going to happen.’ If I get home and the vibe is right, it’ll happen. If not, then top of next year.”

“I can’t give you the concepts or themes, but I’ve got a very clear direction of where I want to go with this one, and we’ll see how it works.”

Full Story: MTV

Swizz Beatz already mentioned that he was making some new Jigga tracks, so don’t be surprised to hear something late 08/early 09. I wonder how he will follow up a classic like, “American Gangster.”

They have 8 different covers including Jay-Z, Barack Obama, Denzel Washington, Prince, Samuel L. Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Billie Dee Williams & Marvin Gaye. Check out some more covers below.

Who got more swagger Jigga or Barack?

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Video: Jay-Z’s Glastonbury Performance

Just finished watching the Jay-z performance, well about an hour ago. Been looking forward to his performance the whole day and he killed it! There were just over 300,000 people in the field so I really couldn’t get any video but I managed to get the billi freestyle but the sound makes it not worth listening to. He came out with a guitar mocking oasis because of their comments about him performing. This was my second time going to Glastonbury and from all the performances there have been this has to be in the top 3 of all time. For a hip-hop artist to come out to a white dominated event and rock/indie dominated event to be one of the only hip-hop acts (not forgetting Lupe) they both did their thing. Especially to do the his act on his own, well apart from memphis bleek who was there for a couple of songs. And Beyonce was there in the background and I’m guessing like most of the other people there thought she would come out and do a song.
  
And although this has nothing to do with the Jay-z performance there might be a video of Amy Winehouse punching a fan coming on to the internet soon, so you might want to keep an eye out for that. And I’m not to sure if you have seen the video of Lupe and his comments “Fuck Bush, Fuck Robert Mugabe” and I ain’t to sure about what’s going to happen to him since the Dixi Chicks and their comments, so that might be something to look out for. Well, anyway the Jay-z performance was deffinetly the best of this years Glastonbury and I’m still surprised it did not sell out.

-Tarisai Makotore

Side-note the crackhead Amy Winehouse took a shot at Kanye West:
“amy-winehouse also told the audience to get ready for jay-z and be grateful they weren’t gettying kanye-west as he is a cunt” - bee
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Jay-Z talks about how he first started rapping and growing up in Bed-Stuy. He said he started rapping at the age of 9 and also saw someone get shot at that age. He goes on to say the thought of ever being broke again motivates him to succeed. Its a funny interview worth the watch.

Part 2 of the interview is below, he talks about sampling, his upcoming performance & Beyonce.
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Props LowKey

TimeOut: It’s interesting that you say that – most rappers appear to be very cautious about speaking out about social problems in their interviews.

Jay-Z: ‘Right. Yeah, that all comes out of fear. You gotta figure where most of these guys are coming from. They’re coming from very poverty-stricken areas, and now here they are and they have a chance to provide for themselves and their generation, and they want to hold on to it. So they’re a little afraid of especially that type of thing – you’re gonna take on the government. They’re afraid of the repercussions of that. They’re gonna absolutely shut them down.’

Full Interview: TimeOut

In the interview Jay-Z talks about his upcoming Glastonbury concert, thoughts on the London music scene, fans trying to rob Lil Wayne during a concert, possibly investing into the Yankees and politics.

People are struggling, they’re broke, they gotta pay the light bill, then pay the rent.” They don’t even know what that means! That’s why people are not so involved with politics. I never voted until two, three years ago. Because as a kid that’s how I was brought up – whoever was in office, nothing changed.

-Jay-Z

I kind of got that mentality, to me it doesn’t matter who the president is, I just got to do me. With that said, people still need to vote in order for politicians to at least pretend to give a damn about them.

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