Jay-Z Snags New Platinum Certifications For Some Of His Best Songs

Jay-Z‘s plaques are as shiny as his luxury watches, and he’s got a couple more of those under his belt as of Friday (August 23). Moreover, the Recording Industry Association of America gave him some new platinum certifications for some of his biggest hits. However, only one of these Hov cuts was certified platinum for the first time in this instance, that being “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me).” The other plaques here are additional multi-platinum certifications for some of his biggest hits ever that were already platinum, spanning from his early days all the way to his early-to-mid-2010s output.

Here’s the breakdown: “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” went double platinum and “Holy Grail” featuring Justin Timberlake went six times platinum. “99 Problems” and “No Church In The Wild” with Kanye West and featuring Frank Ocean and The-Dream are now triple platinum, whereas “Run This Town” with Ye and Rihanna is now six times platinum as well. It’s certainly due cause for Jay-Z to celebrate these days even as his legal issues with Dame Dash’s Reasonable Doubt shares continue to develop, albeit in his favor.

Jay-Z’s New Platinum Plaques

“I don’t expect anyone, just some average person, to come buy it,” Dame Dash said of his shares in this classic Jay-Z album. “Or a third of it, my third. I don’t wanna get sued again. I know, for some reason, nobody wants me to sell it. But I’m ready to just move on, do my thing. I had a lawsuit, I had a judgement, and I’m like, ‘Yo, that’s 800 grand. Go get it from over there. They not paying me neither!’ So, they went and did the work for me [to pay] that debt and I’ll be able to sell it. It all worked out for me. I’m sure there’s a little twist they put on things. I don’t know why – I do know why, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why about one thing, but I do know why about the other.

“They had some bum-a** board meeting and all of a sudden he gets first right of refusal,” Dame Dash said of Jay-Z. “I don’t really care. It don’t slow nothing down for me. Now I don’t know how deep homie’s pockets is. I’m curious if he’s gonna match that. I put an offer on the table, lemme see if he’ll match it. But it was from other people.”

About The Author

Gabriel Bras Nevares is a music and pop culture news writer for HotNewHipHop. He started in 2022 as a weekend writer and, since joining the team full-time, has developed a strong knowledge in hip-hop news and releases. Whether it’s regular coverage or occasional interviews and album reviews, he continues to search for the most relevant news for his audience and find the best new releases in the genre. What excites him the most is finding pop culture stories of interest, as well as a deeper passion for the art form of hip-hop and its contemporary output.

Specifically, Gabriel enjoys the fringes of rap music: the experimental, boundary-pushing, and raw alternatives to the mainstream sound. As a proud native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, he also stays up-to-date with the archipelago’s local scene and its biggest musical exponents in reggaetón, salsa, indie, and beyond.

Before working at HotNewHipHop, Gabriel produced multiple short documentaries, artist interviews, venue spotlights, and audio podcasts on a variety of genres and musical figures. Hardcore punk and Go-go music defined much of his coverage during his time at the George Washington University in D.C.

His favorite hip-hop artists working today are Tyler, The Creator, Boldy James, JPEGMAFIA, and Earl Sweatshirt.