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Magna Carter Holy Grail drops in exactly a week. Jay-Z's forthcoming album and his solo effort first since The Blueprint III has already went platinum due to Jay-Z's ground breaking digital venture with Samsung. While the album is being released untraditionally, Jay-Z continues to refer back to his blueprint working with his go to team of long time friends like Timbaland, Pharell Williams, and Swizz Beats.
While interviewing with VIBE Magazine about his new partnership with Monster, Swizz Beatz (accompanied by Monster CEO Noel Lee), Swizzy opened up about the concept behind Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay-Z's genius, and progressive hip-hop.
"Jay is just ahead of the times. I've been working with Jay for 17 years now- which is crazy because I'm only 34. This album represents Jay. It's like... how do I give somebody something authentic that they can go back pull from and give them something that's ahead of its time? I think he summed that up very well. When you hear someone's album, you always want to go back to the classics. You always have that hunger of 'Man, why didn't he didn't he just... Man, he's supposed to...' It's always going to be that. For the first time in a long time I think someone solved that problem and I think he did that with this album. "
"Me and Jay got an ongoing working relationship, so they'll be tracks here [and there]. He'll send something. You just never really know what he's working on. You just go to the studio one day and he'll unfold the whole thing. Luckily, it was at my studio [Laughs]."
"That stuff was happening for real. People don't understand that. What they seen on TV wasn't no script. That was real-there just happened to be cameras rolling. We was vibing like that for real. Timb had his drum machine and I had my drum machine. We have more footage I just wish Jay would let us put it out. It was like that for a lot of those sessions. The vibe was great.I didn't do as much as I could if done but sometimes less is more. [This album] just means that we're all on the right track of forward thinking. To see him do it 'I'm like ok he get.' A lot of people don't get it-they're just so used to following the same train. So for Jay to take his power and create his own train-I think it was genius. That's something I would love to do." So Swizz has a few beats on there? "Why not, I didn't do as much as I could but sometimes less is more. I was excited with what he did with Open Letter. The White House was speaking about it the next day." What does this app first release mean? Game changer? "It just means that we're all on the right track of forward thinking. To see him do it 'I'm like ok he get.' A lot of people don't get it, they're just so used to following the same train. So for Jay to take his power and create his own train I think it was genius. That's something I would love to do." Billboard counts his sales, doesn't even matter? "He was being innovative. So people they can't relate to innovation. It's his album, he can do what he wants to do. He's earned the rights to do whatever he wants to do. He's put enough time into this game with Billbord and any other outlet. He's is his own boss and there's a reason why he did it like that.
