Jay-Z has restored the hyphen to his name.
The ’99 Problems’ rapper – whose real name is Shawn Carter – has been known as Jay Z since the release of his 2013 LP ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’, but the announcement of his new visual album ‘4.44’ revealed he has reverted back to his original stylisation, but using all capital letters.
Jay previously revealed he had dropped the punctuation mark because it was "not useful anymore", but it is unclear why he has now restored it.
He said previously: "That was like three years ago, I don’t know how that story resurfaced, but I guess it was a slow news day.
"The hyphen was really big back in the day. It’s not useful anymore. I had umlauts over one of the letters; I removed that too."
Jay’s company, TIDAL, announced the release of his new venture on Monday (19.06.17), posting a 30-second clip of a new song called ‘ADNIS’ on Twitter.
The video features ‘Moonlight’ actor Mahershala Ali, 43, as a boxer using a punch bag, which is be being held by the trainer portrayed by Danny Glover, 70, and it also features actress Lupita Nyong’o.
A second image shared on the micro-blogging site revealed the release date of June 30.
Alongside the image, it reads:"@S_C_ x ‘4:44’ album x 6/30 http://Sprint.TIDAL.com #TIDALXSprint (sic)"
The track appears to be a letter to the 47-year-old hip-hop legend’s father filled with lyrics he’s never brought up before.
He raps: "Letter to my dad that I never wrote/Speeches I prepared that I never spoke/Words on a paper that I never read/Prose is never penned, they stayed in my head (sic)"
The movie is reportedly set to be released through TIDAL only via a partnership with Sprint.
It comes after billboards with ‘4:44’ were spotted around New York City earlier this month.
Jay is set to perform at V Festival this August Bank Holiday Weekend in England and has several US festivals coming up.
They include Made In America in Philadelphia on September 2 and 3 and the Meadows Festival at Citi Field on September 15.
The album couldn’t come at a more fitting time with Jay welcoming twins into the world over the weekend with his wife Beyonce, 35, with whom he also has five-year-old daughter Blue Ivy.
Jay-Z makes name change
