JAY-Z‘s collection of platinum plaques has grown this week, as the rapper received a bevy of new RIAA certifications for his solo work and his joint project with Kanye West.
On Friday (August 23), the Recording Industry Association of America officially bestowed platinum and multi-platinum certification on six of Hov’s most beloved singles. Of those, the only one to earn its very first indication of 1 million records sold was 2000’s “I Just Wanna Love You (Give It 2 Me).”
“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” hit the 2x platinum mark, while “99 Problems” is officially 3x platinum. The Brooklyn rapper’s Justin Timberlake-assisted “Holy Grail” is now 6x platinum, as is the anthemic “Run This Town,” featuring Rihanna and Kanye West.
The former partners in rhyme also earned a 3x platinum certification for the Watch The Throne track “No Church In The Wild,” which features Frank Ocean on the hook.
The Roc Nation boss’ latest accolades arrive on the heels of an equally impressive feat for one of his other hit singles.
Earlier this year, Alicia Keys took to Instagram to celebrate her song with JAY-Z, “Empire State of Mind,” hitting one billion streams and tease another collaboration.
In a post on June 15, the “If I Ain’t Got You” singer shared a black and white clip of her and JAY-Z standing in front of bright lights before epic orchestral music crescendos.
Keys captioned her post: “1 Dream. 1 Song. 1 Billion streams [three prayer hand emojis]. Thank you! We love you. What’s next….[eyes emoji, shushing emoji].”
She later took to X (formerly Twitter), where she shared a photo of two performance microphones — one with the initial “J,” the other labeled “AK.”
While she left the photo uncaptioned, she tagged CBS and Roc Nation, indicating that a surprise televised special may be in the works.
The next day, JAY-Z joined the singer to perform their hit duet as a surprise addition to her scheduled performance at the 2024 Tony Awards.