This year has been one for the books! I think as 2020 comes to an end, it’s important to point out some of the dope things that happened. Mind you, i had my daughter this year so for ME, that is the number one best thing that happened BUT as a hip-hop head, a lover of the Golden Era and TRUE FAN of Jay-Z- the Clubhouse room on his birthday was a HUGE highlight!
December 4th is basically a celebration day, a hip-hop holiday- Hov’s birthday! We play back music videos, interviews, our favorite tracks, albums and scroll though photos of the goat all day. I love December 4th.
This year we got something EXTRA special. A Jay-Z Appreciation room was started on the app Clubhouse. At its peak of attendees, it had about 50 people speaking and over 2k people listening in. Imagine a room full of Jay-Z’s friends and co-workers for the last 20 plus years hanging out and showing love, telling stories and some even reconnecting. This was GOLD! I was listening in for HOURS.
The room included Just Blaze, Dame Dash, DJ Drama, Freeway, DJ Scratch, Kayambo, Styles P, Lenny Santiago, 21 Savage, Rob Markman, DJ Green Lantern, B.Dot, Elliott Wilson, Lupe Fiasco, 9th Wonder, Swizz Beatz, Sonny Digital and SO MANY MORE! This was like the jackpot for fans to hear backstories and things we never knew!
For example, there was a Michael Jackson version of “Girls, Girls, Girls?!” Just Blaze said the track “Flipside” was intended for Beyonce but it went to Freeway instead. Lupe Fiasco talked about how he first learned to rap by literally rhyming over Jay-Z tracks. There is a Hov verse for “Oh Boy” on a corrupted hard drive somewhere. Biggie stopped writing down his raps after he saw Hov record his verses for “Brooklyn’s Finest,” we all know Hov doesn’t write his raps down!
And that is not even close to all the stories and things we learned! I honestly wish I had taken notes the whole time like I was in a Jay-z college course! If you were there, then you know and I think a lot of us will never forget Jay-Z’s birthday in 2020.
