The JAŸ-Z in 8 finale has arrived.
The final two installments of Hov’s HBO Max docuseries landed Friday evening (Oct. 9), with Rick Rubin helping the hip-hop legend unpack the stories behind key moments and releases from the latter years of his career.
Episode seven explores hits like “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “Empire State of Mind” (with Alicia Keys), as well as essential projects like The Blueprint 3 and Streets Is Watching. As Jay reflected on his hit-packed 2009 LP, he affirmed Rubin’s observation that the release marked a shift in his approach to album artwork. “I started getting into collecting art around that time,” the Brooklyn MC concurred.
Episode eight digs into some of Jay’s more heady, political work. He breaks down his exploration of intracommunity fighting amongst Black folk on “The Story of O.J.,” explains his challenging of existing power structures on the classic “No Church in the Wild” and draws a throughline of generational healing between “Family Feud” and “Legacy.”
Both episodes are a fitting close to the eight-part series, which used relatively broad strokes to paint the arc of Jay’s life and career. The episodes also bolster the docuseries’ overarching argument that rap is a quintessential American art form deserving of the same respect as any of the country’s foundational sounds and cultural spaces.
Directed by Rubin, JAŸ-Z in 8 is a Tetragrammaton production. Executive producers include Academy Award winner Daniel Kaluuya, Jay-Z and Rubin. Leila Mattimore and David Rohde also serve as producers.
The series arrives amid a celebratory year for the hip-hop mogul. He returned to the stage in an Afro during his buzzy headlining set at May’s Roots Picnic, which set the scene for his string of stadium-packing JAŸ-Z 30 concerts across Los Angeles, London, Paris, and, of course, New York City. Hov actually kicked off the trek in his hometown with three sold-out Yankee Stadium shows featuring a barrage of who’s who in the music industry, including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Eminem, Blue Ivy, Usher, Teyana Taylor, Slick Rick, Jaz-O, The-Dream, Clipse, Pharrell Williams and more.
Last week (Sept. 24), a woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her as a 13-year-old girl fully recanted her allegations, telling a federal judge that her claims were “false,” that she had mental health issues and that her ex-attorneys filed the case without the proper due diligence.
Here are five things we learned from episodes seven and eight below. The final two episodes of JAŸ-Z in 8 are now available to stream on HBO Max.
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How the Nas Rivalry Started — And Ended
Before Kendrick and Drake imploded hip-hop with their 2024 battle, Jay-Z and Nas arguably had the most famous hip-hop beef of all time. Now that the two gentlemen are “really good friends,” as Jay puts it, they can reflect on the origins and endings of their row.
“Nas was supposed to be on my first album; he just never showed up to the studio,” Jay revealed. “And I’m not really a guy like that… so that was that for me. I’m never asking him for anything again. [There’s] not a problem. But that was the end of it.”
By the time Nas dropped his second album, It Was Written, in 1996, “he was taking what I perceived to be shots,” said Jay. “Everyone knew I had the Lexus with the TVs.” On “The Message,” Nas spits, “Lex with TV sets—the minimum, ill sex adrenaline,” which “began a cold war of sorts” that escalated into a rap battle, but the competition made both artists better. “He really rose to the occasion, I’ll say that,” Jay said in closing. “It fizzled out at the end; during the whole thing we had so much respect for each other. It got personal… but it was more about competition.”
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Jay-Z vs. Beyoncé in the Studio
In something of a preview to the breakdown of “Family Feud” in episode eight, Rubin asked Jay to compare and contrast his recording process with his wife’s. Of course, Hov & Bey have teamed up for Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers like “Crazy in Love,” Grammy-winning full-lengths such as Everything is Love and a pair of stadium-conquering world tours. Jay has also been a key songwriting partner for Beyoncé over the years, contributing to her rap verses on tracks like “Savage (Remix),” “Alien Superstar” and “Spaghettii”
Jay described Beyoncé’s recording process as “wild” and “layered,” in contrast to his improvisational approach. “She’ll record her vocal and stack it up a thousand times,” he said. “Her creativty, a lot of it is in the melodies and the harmonies… and she’ll try anything. I’m too self-conscious to try anything and be screaming… [My process is] pretty much my voice, straightforward. I play with music and melody more than the character.”
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The First Hip-Hop Line He Remembers Hitting Him On a Deeper Level
At the beginning of episode seven, Rubin asks Jay about the first hip-hop line he remembers making him realize that something deeper was going on in the lyrics. In response, Hov flawlessly spit Big Daddy’s verse of Marley Marl’s “The Symphony,” which he remembers hearing the Brooklyn MC lay down during the making of joint mixtape with Jaz-O at producer Fresh Gordon’s house. “So put a quarter in your ass ’cause ya played yourself/ Like a game in the arcade, you need a far aid,” raps Kane.
“‘You played yourself’ wasn’t a popular phrase yet, and I was like Wow. Whoa,” Jay told Rubin. “I was in there thinking, ‘I got a ways to go,’ I’m not there yet.”
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The First Time Jay Heard Hip-Hop From Outside of NYC
Jay says Ice-T or NWA were his first encounters with hip-hop music from outside of New York City. “It felt like Richard Pryor albums,” he remembered. “It felt dangerous.”
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Rick Rubin Visited N.W.A in the Studio During the Making of ‘Straight Outta Compton’
As Jay reflected on his first time hearing hip-hop music from outside of New York City, Rubin revealed that he actually visited the studio while N.W.A was recording its landmark Straight Outta Compton album. He noted that it was the first time he was around a lot of guns in hip-hop, saying, “Before that, it wasn’t really like that… a lot of people with a lot of guns. It was different.”