In 2003, after the release of The Black Album, the performer announced his departure from rapping. By that moment, it was clear that the two artists had a romance. The cover for 2Pac's song 03 Bonnie & Clyde, featuring Beyonce, became the lead hit from the album. It could be that rivalry that greatly inspired Jay-Z - he secluded himself in the studio, where he wrote about 40 songs, 25 of which featured the double disc The Blueprint: The Gift & The Curse, which saw light in 2002. Around the same time, the scandalous rivalry between the rapper and his colleague Nas began - for the whole year both of them devoted angry and witty rap odes to each other, which greatly contributed to the popularity of both Jay-Z and Nas. The sixth masterpiece titled The Blueprint affirmed Jay-Z's top position in rap in 2001. The highly lyrical and passionate composition I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me) became the loudest success from the work. In 2000, the rapper had one more ace in the pocket - the full-length Dynasty Roc La Familia, which was much contributed by his protégés. Dre and Timbaland produced this epic thing, full of sincere stories from Jay-Z's hard times, while singles Big Pimpin and Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up) became big hits. Being faithful to the one-year-one-record tradition, Jay-Z issued Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life saw light and brought the first Grammy award to the rapper.

Besides the hardcore tracks, the work featured pop rap - such things, as Sunshine and The City Is Mine showed that Jay-Z is not serious and brutal all the time and exposed him to a wider auditory. 1, fortified the success of the Reasonable Doubt. In 1997, the autobiographic disc In My Lifetime, Vol. along with the theme of gangster life made the whole New York talk about Jay-Z. Having found a reputable distributor Priority Records (which later would become Def Jam, headed by Jay-Z himself), the artist recorded his debut album Reasonable Doubt in 1996. Jay-Z was the member of the hip-hop command Original Flavor for a short time, but then instead of signing to a major recording company, he decided to start his own label Roc-a-Fella Records. The colleague told to the fresher some of his experience about show business and advised what to do in order to become prominent in rap circles. Once, when Jay-Z was wondering around the streets, he accidentally ran across a rapper with small fame called Big Jaz, or Jay-O. He started rapping being a teenager, and in the neighborhood, people called him Jazzy, or Jay-Z. So the boy soon became independent and learned how to take care of himself. His father left the family when Sean was just a kid, and they were constantly short of money. Sean Corey Carter, professionally famous as Jay-Z, was born and brought up in Brooklyn, New York.

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