He’d displayed his skills with guest appearances on Jaz’s “The Originator” and “It’s That Simple” to Original Flavor’s “Can I Get Open?” to Big Daddy Kane’s “Show & Prove.” He eventually teamed up with Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke to create Roc-A-Fella Records, and starting with his debut album Reasonable Doubt, released in 1996, ascended to heights of fame seldom seen in hip-hop. Jay-Z had never been a slouch on the mic.

Jay-Z, first made a name for himself during this mid ’90s environment. Rap videos were getting regular run on MTV, rather than isolated to Yo! MTV Raps. Rap tracks were being played on mainstream radio during the daytime. Suddenly, the idea of rappers making music designed to sell millions didn’t seem that weird anymore. But slowly, as Bad Boy and Death Row exploded onto the scene, the template for the commercially successful rapper shifted from Young MC and Vanilla Ice to Snoop Doggy Dogg and Biggie Smalls. This tenet held through the mid ’90s, at least partially because “pop” friendly rappers were viewed as less-than-skilled cornballs. And one of the things that “No Sell Out” entailed was that rappers didn’t compromise their music for the sake of sales. The concept of “No Sell Out” was built into rap music’s DNA. In its early days, the idea of a rapper making an album was completely alien to hip-hop, much less a rapper making an album that was designed to sell millions of records. It’s become a quaint idea to many that during the ’80s and ’90s, rappers that sold lots of records were often considered less than “real.” At its core, hip-hop is a culture built on being everything that other genres of music are not. There has long been a complicated relationship between hip-hop and commercial success.

Happy 20th Anniversary to Jay Z’s sixth studio album The Blueprint, originally released September 11, 2001.

Jay z the dynasty: roc la familia zip