It’s been a busy couple of days for Jay Z — sorry, the rapper formerly known as Jay Z. He’s releasing a new album, 4:44, at the end of the month, and his wife Beyoncé gave birth to the couple’s new twin babies over the weekend. But, if that wasn’t enough, the rapper formerly known as Jay Z has changed his name. Now, he’s JAY-Z.
That’s right, the Blueprint rapper has returned the hyphen to its rightful place after officially dropping it from his name in 2013. It’s unclear why he’s opted to bring it back (and it’s unclear exactly why he ditched it in the first place), and it’s unclear why he’s slamming on that caps lock key. All we know is that an official press release for the Sprint/Tidal-exclusive album listed him as “JAY-Z,” and a rep from his label, Roc Nation, confirmed to Pitchfork that he has indeed changed his moniker.
The hyphen is fine. Frankly, his name looked a little wrong without it. But the caps are a little much. Vanity capitalization is bogus.
Anyway, that’s the big music news of the day. JAY-Z’s upcoming album, 4:44, comes out on June 30. It will exclusively be streaming on Tidal, which means that literally dozens of people will be able to listen to it.
