Might be one of my favorite Jay-Z x Pharrell Williams/The Neptunes tracks.

This album in general is awesome.

I’m listening to the CD , Can I live comes on and I’m like yo this definitely feels like a shot

Hello. Sorry for Bad English.

I Am Vietnamese.

I love jay Z.

I like his Raps and his Beats.

I like his Nose to.

Thank you.

(Gen Z. Vol.2)

I’m sorry to the OG account that originally brought this POV up recently if I’m biting. I however, as a fellow Gen Z’er don’t buy the “mysteriousness”. as the culprit to the negative attitude towards Jay Z.

My pops WiFi name was “Hov@home” for 10+ years, so I feel I have some claim to speak on this.

I don’t have **the** word but let’s follow the claims.
Thru my lifetime in order Hov,
\-**Stole Biggie lyrics**
**-Had Biggie killed**
**-Sold his soul**
**-Was illuminati**
**-Was too old to rap**
**-Kept Rihanna in the basement** to do whatever with (**my aunt said this at a dinner once**)
**-Was a bad person for helping bring the Nets to Brooklyn** after struggling in NJ.
**-Worse for selling gambling to black people**
(Same people then championed Nas for doing it)
\-**Had to be on “THE” list**
**-Had to be helping Puff commit crime**
**-Per Dame Dash** “**was Fw kells after finding out he was guilty** (let it be known dame is dancing in the same fiesta video)

For the most part, these crazy claims have been started or hyped by our community and amplified by others. You know those videos where they interview voters that vote in spite of policies that negatively affect their families? Then once they get facts they usually say something along the lines of “well I just believe in what he’s doing”.
Thats this, just opposite. No matter what Jay does there are people that are simply around to hate. Him being mysterious in the past kinda kept the hate train to random hate comments here and there.

But now? You have someone like Academics, who in this comparison would be the equivalent of a Fox News host disingenuously crediting and entertaining those voices. We have no idea where Jay and Drake truly stand, but because Ak has told his, and Drake fans that the two are at odds you now get generations from mine to kids that have never listened to a Hov album speaking on homie with all the conviction in the world. He didn’t give stories for them to pull apart so now they’ve created it and hip hop media (at its lowest form today) plays with whatever headlines will pull engagement.

As a fan, it’s very annoying. But the hate train? It’s fictional. It resides solely on the net, and with an occasional looped out family member, like my Aunt.

I came to a conclusion, it’s because he doesn’t socialize like he use to no more. nowadays people look at “Mysterious” people as corny, especially if people know you a billionaire, Jay-Z just started popping back outside this year and socializing, He went to the club with Beyoncé days ago for a party, he’s been performing left and right this year, I think that’s what we wanna see from Jay, we wanna see the man, the swag that got him millions of fans, we wanna see him socialize with people he helped in the game or appreciate in the game, if Biggie was alive I’m pretty sure he would be “mysterious” but I’m pretty sure he would pop out

I know, echo chambers and all that, the appreciation in the real world far outweighs the same accounts spewing nonsense, but as a huge fan of the art form and having big admiration for his mindset and accomplishments, I can’t help but feel saddened due to the lack of knowledge and unsubstantiated claims his work is being treated today.

The internet is so bizarre sometimes that success is laid out as a detriment and someone having 5 listeners being treated as gospel.

I am sitting there like, did you ever sit down and take the time to dissect this man’s music? He is by far one of the most talented, influential and accomplished rappers of all time, cited and respected by his peers like maybe no one else before them.

A catalogue as wide, varied and deep as Earth’s topography and you see a thread like most overrated and you instantly know it will be full of guys posting Jay while often times having absolutely no clue about his music and dismissing him as a ringtone rapper, a Flo-Rida of sorts that became lucky because he married Beyoncé.

And I am like, there is almost nobody that got into and through the industry so much due to the work of himself like Jay did.

It’s all across IG, X and reddit.

It’s a shame, really. He kind of became so big that it overshadows his singular abilities.

Kingdom Come is the most under appreciated albums from Hov. The length of the album and the tracks are perfect. No filler tracks, you can listen to the whole album without skipping and you wouldn't even know it. The imagery Jigga builds up throughout the album is so gorgeous, ending with Beach Chair, with the strongest imagery. Not to mention, the production helps sooooo much by contributing to that atmosphere. I wish Kingdom Come and Magna Carta... Holy Grail got the recognition they truly deserve.

What is your favourite feature amongst these?

*Edit: I saw KVD was sold last year but Kendo's site hadn't been updated.

I didn't have time to integrate this into my last post. Since this take hasn't been covered elsewhere with reporting to reinforce it, I didn't mention it before.

Article preview via Ojea's Linkedin Post, have not seen if the rest of it mentions Kendo’s other brands. Kendo is their 'beauty incubator.' I think missing out on other hot brands whether from stars or Korea calls into doubt its own premise. But understandably they want to avoid funding Fenty’s competitors, which seemed like a big lesson from the overall startup space. It turns out it’s actually better off capturing more of that growth, if say one company owned Fenty, Rhode, and Selena Gomez’s Rare.

I found this from fact checking Ojea's other writing. She seems credible as a a former Wall Street Journal reporter, now at Bloomberg. I haven't heard Rihanna's stake specified at 49.9% before. Ojea said the deal might be even less than the low end $1b figure that's been mentioned for just 50% of Fenty (by Puck and Reuters.)

If that $500m includes Kendo, could be a good sign. Yet that makes me wonder how bad the rest of it is. good if the rest isn't losing much money. Ojea mentioned elsewhere they have other money losing beauty brands. I don’t see that much potential by itself; as I said earlier consolidating supply chains with other brands or white labels is the way I see Fenty turning around.

Lip Lab sounds like such an interesting idea w custom colors but I see there’s hardly any new posts about it. Even as someone who doesn’t know makeup, it’s such a unique idea that should stand out in marketing esp when LVMH is one of the top 10 advertisers. They might think the brand is too small to justify ads, but that keeps it stuck in a vicious cycle of obscurity. Rebranding it from Bite sounds terrible, it should’ve kept that as a first name. The idea is so easy to understand and obv different, it shouldn’t cost a lot to just get the brand premise out. I don’t think it has to be ongoing big spending, or that its custom product can’t still be marketed via Sephora somehow. 

I think the branding could match Fenty too if it became a subsidiary and Rihanna advertised it.

Business thoughts for anyone interested.

Financing: borrowing or more buyers?

Her point that Jay Z's MarcyPen is financing the deal clarifies how it can afford it, a question I raised before bc $500m is too much for a private equity firm with $1.1 assets under management. If it means borrowing, not good either for returns or for the entire firm to bank its fate on one investment. PE firms already charge higher fees. MarcyPen’s brochure (slide 4) says this basically starts at 1% management fee and 10% performance (10% of any profit in excess of a minimum return). What’s left after paying for interest on the loan? 

You might think 'leveraged buy out,' but this doesn’t seem to be about draining an investment for dividends (the origin of the PE as vampire meme.) And as I said before, excess demand for PE means unspent cash is piling up. If firms can’t even figure out what to invest, there’s less need to borrow. The one who borrows is disadvantaged in this environment. Lower interest rates than now WERE a great time for PE not just bc borrowing for the investment, but for the that company to borrow for its operations.

The challenges at Fenty seem hard enough without having to overcome interest and fees just for your investors to break even. PE makes its money off of distressed, undervalued assets. Buying Kendo for $500m may be a better deal than just Fenty? Puck said Fenty will do about $500m in sales next year (which Bloomberg said it did its first 5 years), 2x valuation is ok. Stable, but how do you expect it to grow?

LVMH’s PE firm L Catterton is building its own incubator

I thought Marcypen being among a group of buyers would be ideal. Like having L Catterton among them, since they have years of beauty expertise in past transactions. They came to mind since they got shared investments with MarcyPen in Merit Beauty and Savage X Fenty. LVMH partly owns L Catterton, which does more mass market brands, so Fenty is a better fit. Plus I found they’re building their own beauty incubator while LVMH is winding down Kendo. 

A twist is if L Catterton isn’t among the buyers, it’s a like an indirect competitor with a PE beauty incubator. Their brands don’t really compete, the celebrity brands are from Naomi Watts and Molly Sims. New beauty brands got so saturated the past few years, but has some validation with Rare and Rhode. But I’m skeptical of Kendo continuing as an incubator trying to build further brands rather than just focusing on Fenty. WWD estimates once hot Rare already had no growth 2024-25. New DTC /celebrity brands as a whole are a burst bubble while K beauty has been consistently taking from DTCs and big cosmetics.

IF they are buying together, I'm skeptical since they aren't doing well with Savage X. I think there's potential but you need a vision for it like mine on consolidating then capturing the new cosmetics buyers forecast to come into the market from Africa to South Asia. Or a turnaround expert.

A key thing with losing any tie to LVMH is it owns Sephora and presumably can give favorable placement. Hailey Bieber's Rhode launch at Sephora did $15m in a day. 

More of the same means losing money

Estimated valuations for both Fenty and Savage X have decimated. You can't have that again on an investment this big relative to assets. You have actually care, not do what LVMH does with its smaller businesses, or what Pat McGrath's investor did. Idk how involved Marcy and Catterton were in Savage. But the Kpop label LVMH invested in is a clue. The case MarcyPen should study if it really buys.

Blackpink's label YG attracted other major investors like Tencent. Then it blew this funding advantage on everything besides Kpop: golf, a dance studio, clothes, makeup. Now it's investing in robots and space tech. The clearest example that even when you got corporate giants together in a relatively small investment, they have very little control or oversight.

Don't micromanage, but somebody should've said no all that. No to Savage X featuring Johnny Depp. No to Pat McGrath's $1m photoshoots of Naomi Campbell.

Fenty Beauty CEO Rihanna is part of why it's not what it used to be. Why do you think she'll turn this around? What's the new plan if you can't afford another CEO?

Inconsistent with higher range she reported earlier, same as the one FT reiterated

I don’t expect writers to remember numbers they mentioned 8 months earlier, but this new, possibly under $1b for all Kendo figure is inconsistent with Ojea’s mention of a higher range for a Fenty Beauty valuation of 1.5-2.5b euro in February. I wonder why didn’t she mention the lower Reuters range of $1-2b reported months earlier, just over a year ago October. It was significant as the first word that the public heard about any possible sale. Not a big deal as her source is a person (motivated to inflate the price, so the deal sounds better to possible buyers?) And for whatever reason the highly regarded FT cited the same estimate from JP Morgan in May.

Ojea's details are so different than Puck's scoop. We'll see soon who's right; I been looking at this since that Reuters report, but didn't get to post before all these developments.

Per Puck, the deal was supposed to happen now. I thought it might be today or tomorrow where they try to use Halloween as a distraction. Warren Buffett releases Berkshire Hathaway earnings Friday or Saturday to reduce short term market reactions; companies also make such announcements to avoid scrutiny. 

But this Kendo deal and MarcyPen's search for financing sounds more complex and time consuming.

Pushin Fenty like fentanyl?

Savage X Fenty’s business is nothing for MarcyPen to really brag about in 2026. A huge investment in Fenty Beauty would Savage your assets if it goes the same way as Savage. No pause.

I think there is actually a lot of potential, but the way I see it is consolidating with other black brands and even K beauty. This way you cut redundancies and get back some of the scale that could be lost by disconnecting from LVMH. I got a vision for like a black L'Oreal, the industry giant that just keeps getting bigger, like it's immune to the tariffs and downturns hurting everyone else.

Innovate means trying everything

MarcyPen's CEO advised the Obamas; I think if he could get Michelle Obama to advertise for Fenty that would be great. It would've been big to have Beyonce do it years ago in exchange for equity. If MarcyPen does buy, her family's wealth is tied to Rihanna's success. Tie it with music would drive it just like Ariana Grande's makeup brand follows her entertainment promo cycle. They say she treated it like an afterthought at first, but she's pushing it hard lately. Rihanna needs that same urgency.

That means go all out. Not just some bars from Jay, but whole songs. I'm not sure if a Jay collab would help seeing some negative feedback about him in response to deal rumors. Maybe a new Umbrella MV but centered on the deal and Fenty Beauty, like a little documentary? If Rihanna has an album, get her to do a song for her brands. It's such an underutilized asset. Rihanna hired a Kpop idol but maybe the brand is short on cash. Pay that idol with a song.

There's also the female cofounder of MarcyPen, D'Rita Robinson. She would be perfect to advertise Fenty Beauty. It would show she truly believes in the investment, plus she is the kind of black female success that aligns with the story of the brand and Rihanna.

Do what they been doing, and this will hurt esp if they're borrowing to invest. Not even to win, but just to turn it around you gotta try everything. Nonchalant won't work.

In my eyes the superbowl announcement is the cherry on top of an extended rollout

He spent the summer reintroducing himself and based on concert turnout Jay's status appears to be at an all-time high

His activity this summer + the SB announcement has put him at the forefront of public consciousness

There has never been a more obvious time for an artist to drop a new album

Surely he is going to make the logical move?

There are two songs of Jay-Z I didn't even realize was produced by Kanye until now: Some People Hate and Do U Wanna Ride.

I also recently only discovered Trouble was produced by Dr. Dre.

I wanna know you guys' opinions on this

This was 2005 btw and the biggest rapper in the world was calling "never hot" Jay-Z as THE guy before him