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The Story of O.J.
by JAY Z
From the album:
4:44
What do you think of this song?
Best New songJAY Z — The Story of O.J.
Posted by LetsLoop on July 6, 2017, 6:00 am Mr @Beyoncé, aka @JAY-Z (yup, the hyphen's back), has shared the video for one of the standout tracks from his new album, 4:44.The Story of O.J. is a commentary on the history of racism in America and the title refers to O.J. Simpson's now infamous line: "I'm not black, I'm O.J". The video features vintage animated visuals referencing the racist cartoons released by studios like Warner Bros and Disney in the past.
Here's what Jay had to say about the song in a recent interview on iHeartRadio:
"The Story of O.J. is really a song about we as a culture, having a plan, how we’re gonna push this forward. We all make money, and then we all lose money, as artists especially. But how, when you have some type of success, to transform that into something bigger."
The track features a sample of @Nina Simone's 1966 song, Four Women.
Btw, if you didn't know that Jay had a new album out it's probably because 4:44 is (currently) only available on his celebrity-owned streaming service TIDAL, which isn't exactly overwhelmed with subscribers these days (especially as @Kanye West just left the service claiming he's owed millions in royalty payments).
Having said that, the album has already broken 2 pretty impressive records: (1) it managed to get illegally downloaded more than a million times in its first 3 days of release; and (2) it has already gone platinum.
If you're wondering how an album that is only available on TIDAL (and is getting illegally downloaded at record rates) managed to go platinum so quickly, it's because of a deal with U.S. mobile operator Sprint (a major investor in TIDAL) that gave everyone on their network a free copy of the album. And because they technically paid JAY-Z for each copy, it registered as a sale. Just to highlight how preposterous this setup is, 4:44 actually went Platinum even before the album was out.
Anyway, we're not here to rant about the frustrating nature of streaming exclusives and the baffling way that charts and platinum certifications are calculated these days, we're here to share the first non-TIDAL taste of JAY-Z's 13th album, and it's pretty great.
We look forward to sharing more 4:44 songs with you as soon as the TIDAL exclusive is over. But in the meantime, enjoy!
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