Jay-Z's rock & roll cover art

Jay has gone all Coldplay for the cover of his new album.

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Some eagle-eyed music bloggers have suggested that this is effectively an amalgamation of a cover by the Secret Machines and some imagery from U2's last album. Click the links and see what you think.

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For what it's worth, I like it a alot. It's a darn sight more creative than most Hip Hop album covers, and without question it's 100 times better than a close up of Mr. Z wearing a Yankees baseball hat. Track list below. I'm keen to hear Jay and MGMT on the same track, although form the 'additional production' credit, I imagine that Kanye has sampled a huge chunk of one of their tracks and been forced to include them as assistant producers.

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1. What We Talking About (Produced by Kanye West)

2. D.O.A. (Produced by No I.D.)

3. Weigh Me Down Feat. Kid Cudi (Produced by Kanye West)

4. Unforgiven (Produced by Kanye West, Additional Production: MGMT)

5. Run This Town Feat. Rihanna & Kanye West (Produced by Kanye West)

6. Empire State Of Mind Feat. Nas (Produced by Kanye West & No I.D.)

7. When It Comes To This (Produced by Timbaland)

8. Always Feat. Drake (Produced by Kanye West)

9. Scenes From The Past (Produced by No I.D., Co-produced by Kanye West)

10. Everyday A Star Is Born Feat. Mr. Hudson (Produced by Kanye West)

11. Already Home (Produced by Kanye West)

12. Forever Young Feat. Mr. Hudson (Produced by Kanye West)

13. Thank You (Produced by No I.D.)

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Bonus Tracks:

14. Sound Of The 70s (Produced by Kanye West)

15. We Made History (Produced by Kanye West)

Jay-Z - D.O.A. mp3 / Funk Flex & Mister Cee @ Hot97

Death of Autotune. It needed saying...

'Get back to rap, you're T-Paining too much!'

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From the forthcoming album 'Blueprint 3', produced by No I.D. (Kanye West's mentor). The guitar sample is superb. The horn break is amazing.

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And the release of this is a BIG DEAL. For Jay-Z fans obviously, but also for Hip Hop fans who hate the way the music/culture is going. If you need to understand how much of a big deal this is, check out the footage below of Flex and Cee on Hot97 in NYC. When they hear their namecheck around the 3:27 mark, Cee gets so excited he starts shaking. Funny.

And when Jay takes a pop at rival station Z100 (at 6:40), Flex has some fun at their expense.

Jay to Chris - "You messed with the wrong crew"

^ "Stop it! Stop! He didn't mean it!"

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Former sub-machine gun toting ("I showed you your first Tec on tour with Large Professor") crack-dealer and convicted knife-attacker Jay-Z, has apparently threatened R&B pop-tart Chris Brown for allegedly beating his girlfriend, the Jigga-mentored, ella-ella-ella singing, R&B pop-tart Rihanna at a pre-Grammy's party.

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Now, if Jay would have threatened my safety in '88, I'd have gone on the lam. For a decade. But in 2009, Hova's threats don't hold much sway. He's Bill Gates's buddy. He hangs out with Chris, Gwyn, Apple and Oyster Card (or whatever their latest kid is called). He wins United Nations humanitarian awards for chrissakes! If he farts, it's in the news. So what is he going to do to me, knowing that it's now fully in the public realm? If I was Chris Brown, I'd be thinking... does S-dot want to slap fire out of me THAT MUCH that he'll risk a huge lawsuit and have to go into his pockets for 7 figures? The definitive answer is this: No. He doesn't.

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UPDATE: Rihanna's grandma says she's 'fine'. Phew.

Evan Roth x Jay-Z - Brooklyn (Go Hard) Video

Renowned artist Evan Roth, of the Graffiti Research Lab (famed for their use of LED and laser technology in graffiti), contributes the above visuals to the recently released leaked Jay-Z & Santogold track.

Brooklyn (Go Hard) - Jay-Z feat. Santogold mp3

Produced by Kanye West. From the soundtrack to the Big biopic 'Notorious'.

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Brooklyn (Go Hard) mp3

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Courtesy of Nah Right

Coldplay - Lost+ feat. Jay-Z (Video)

From the new 8 track Prospekt's March EP, out November 24th.

Jay-Z - History mp3

I love that picture. Unfortunately, this track doesn't feature Bill on the hook.

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The new song is called 'History', and it's said to be produced by Kanye West.

No prizes for guessing what it's about.

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History mp3

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Coldplay x Jay-Z - "Viva La Hova" mixtape

The latest in a long line of Jay-Z mash-up (I hate that term, let's call it a 'blend') albums.

This one takes various acapella verses from Hov and couples them with music created solely from records made by Coldplay. Go to vivalahova.com for more info, and to hear Jay's take on the project.

Click the image above for a close-up of Eugene Delacroix's painting from 1830 with Rocafella chains and Yankee fitteds photoshopped in. Excellent.

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Viva La Hova mixtape mp3

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Jay-Z - Jocking Jay-Z mp3

From the forthcoming album The Blueprint 3, said to be produced entirely by Mr. West.

Link courtesy of 2dopeboyz.

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Jocking Jay-Z mp3

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Lil' Wayne feat. Jay-Z - Mr. Carter mp3

I don't see what the big deal is with this kid.

Why anybody would pay good money for his music is beyond me. Here's a free track from his upcoming album... featuring Mr. Glastonbury himself (who does a good job of making the artist whose song he's guesting on look very bad indeed in comparison).

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Courtesy of eskay - Mr. Carter mp3

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