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in response to your question the literal answer is Just Blaze.
But Jay got a lot more out of Kanye than just some beats. For starters, the surprising superstardom of Kanye almost immediately after the release of College Dropout stirred something up in Jay. Some may disagree but I GUARANTEE "retirement" Jay looked at Ye in the Spring of 04 like "nah, this ain't the dude to take my spot. He can't even spit like that!"
Fast forward to Late Registration and Jay deliberately ignored the proposed subject matter of "Diamonds Remix" just to bust Kanye's ass. For better or worse, that was the most inspired Jay would sound at any point in the period between Black Album and American Gangster.
I think Jay mostly came so vicious on American Gangster because he was embarrassed about how poorly Kingdom Come was received. But you also can't ignore the hysteria caused by the rollout of Graduation -Ye v 50- and the overwhelmingly positive response of that album. Watching this all transpire from the couch in his Tribeca high rise certainly motivated Jay as well. Here it was, the first "Post-Hov" mega event in rap and not only wasn't he involved but the main star of the saga was his former label mate who last he saw was getting started just as he was leaving music.
American Gangster worked wonders for Jay-Z. Though he barely acknowledges it at all now and plays none of it's songs live, Gangster reminded everyone just how special he was. The following Summer Jay would go on to triumphantly headline Glastonbury, the distinct moment where Jay-Z the best rapper of all time graduated to JAY-Z: PEER TO BONO AND PRINCE AND MADONNA.
Luckily for Jay, he'd drop a dog shit album (BP3) anchored by one megahit at the same time Kanye dropped his least-focused effort 808s and Heartbreak. 808s was Kanye's first record that didn't substantially improve his starpower, so Jay would remain situated as the top dog at best, and at worst would only be viewed as an equal to Kanye.
I'm not certain that Jay likes Kanye West as much as he likes being important. I think if you're Jay-Z in Winter 2010 you look at the pandemonium caused by "Dark Fantasy" and you're puzzled by it but suddenly also totally cognizant of the force that is Kanye. I mean here you have a guy who by all accounts committed career suicide with his first lackluster album, 808s, then an incident that proved to be a way more detrimental deal than it should've been, the Taylor Swift incident; yet, through it all Kanye didn't just endure, he thrived. There's simply no way Jay-Z could fathom that kind of unbridled creativity as well as the fierce loyalty of Kanye's fans/critics; he couldn't fathom it because no one was more calculated in the 2000s than Jay. For all his careful plotting, Jay-Z was never ADORED like post-Fantasy Kanye was. Naturally, when the call came to make Watch the Throne he didn't bat a lash to accept Kanye's invitation.
The yarns about the Throne sessions are well documented. Jay essentially had to play by Kanye's rules during the making of the album. For us the listeners it worked out tremendously well. We got the most focused Hov we'd had since American Gangster, to the point he was even introducing new flows and rapping over beats you'd NEVER find on a Jay-Z solo release. Suddenly he wasn't just the still-sort of hip-elder-statesman, he was Michael Jordan reborn in the LeBron era.
Last Summer was hilarious because Jay's one upsmanship finally backfired on him. Weeks after Yeezus drops, with so many people still trying to digest it and make sense of this unorthodox release, Jay hits you with the "oh by the way I have an album too!" In all of his cunning wisdom he makes the story the "how" instead of focusing on the music itself. I can't say Magna Carta was a TOTAL bust -it still yielded hits and served as a launching point for the mega Timberlake joint tour. But there's no denying that the stunning rawness of Yeezus contributed to Magna Carta's cool reception from critics, social media users, and bloggers. (In fact, as polarizing as Yeezus was, even those that didn't like it voiced their appreciation for Kanye's attempt at reinvention when comparing the album to Jay's bland album.) Even Magna Carta's cover art is a direct descendant of the "epic" tone established by Kanye with the WTT album art and tour...funny when you consider that while Jay was still trying to keep up with that aesthetic KANYE WENT AESTHETIC-LESS for the Yeezus packaging.
In short, Kanye has served as a convenient safety net for Jay for the better part of the last 10 years. Everytime Hov ran out of ideas or did some lame shit, he left it to Kanye to give the Jay-Z brand a shot in the arm. And it was a mutually beneficial relationship as well; Jay got to borrow Kanye's artistic capital while Kanye was viewed as the first credible peer to Jay if by nothing else than association.
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