Producer Samples by Genre
The chart visualizes the musical genres producers draw on when composing tracks for Jay-Z. Hovering over each producer’s name will reveal the total number of samples included on each album they’ve worked on with Jay-Z. The table below the producer bar graph organizes the samples by album and genres. The darker the shade, the more samples are included from that genre.
Part of what makes Jay-Z one of our greatest rappers concerns his active collaborations with four of hip hop’s greatest producers: Just Blaze, Kanye West, The Neptunes, and Timbaland. Taken together, these producers have produced 45% of Jay-Z’s entire body of music.
Without working with these artists, Jay-Z would have had a good career, but perhaps not great. With them, his music is infused with a rich variety of music samples from different genres and decades.
Just Blaze and Kanye West, for instance, are arguably the most consequential producers of Jay-Z’s music. Just Blaze and Kanye both worked on 6 out of 12 of the Brooklyn rapper’s solo albums.
On The Black Album, Just Blaze produced what Jay-Z proclaimed to be the “next Black National Anthem,” “Public Service Announcement.” The interlude samples Little Boy Blues’s 1968 soul song “Seeds of Love.” “Public Service Announcement,” with Just Blaze’s black power-esque monologue, is one of Jay-Z’s most popular songs.
On The Blueprint 2, Kanye West produced “A Dream,” sampling the drums from The 5th Dimension’s “The Rainmaker,” various elements from Blackjack’s “Stay,” and also incorporating the first verse from The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy.” Similarly, “03 Bonnie & Clyde” samples the melody from Makaveli’s “Me and My Girlfriend” and vocals from Prince’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend.” And on The Black Album, Kanye produced the song “Lucifer” which samples Max Romeo’s “Chase the Devil” throughout the entire song.
Overall, Jay-Z’s tendency to work with so many different creative minds contributes to the depth of his music. The use of samples breathes new life into classic songs across various decades and demonstrates the intersections between different genres of music.
