Among other things, the video touches on African American culture, various roles within the black community, and how the black community is affected by money. The video uses a style similar to the Censored Eleven cartoons, depicting several well-known stereotypes associated with African Americans. It was directed by Jay-Z and Mark Romanek. The music video for "The Story of O.J." premiered on Jon Jay-Z's Vevo account on YouTube. American rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again also remixed the song in 2020. The song's instrumental was used by American rapper Pusha T in his 2018 diss track against Canadian rapper and singer Drake. The song features samples from Nina Simone's song " Four Women". It received three nominations at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Best Rap Song, and Best Music Video. Following the release of the album, the song charted in a couple of regions, entering and peaking at number 23 on the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as charting at number 88 on the UK Singles Chart. Watch Jay Z rap over Fugazi at the beginning of the video below." The Story of O.J." is a song by American hip hop artist Jay-Z from his thirteenth studio album 4:44. While we may never get to hear it in full, we can see footage of Jay laying it down in the studio with Rubin.
Unfortunately, the song never saw the light of day in full, and remains one of Jay Z's most sought-after B-sides.
Sometimes known as "Pop Pop the Burner" and other times called "Troubles on My Mind," Jay spit bars on an instrumental that heavily sampled Fugazi's End Hits standout "Closed Captioned." In issue 33 of FADER, Ian MacKaye confirmed that he cleared the song to be sampled on the record. Those sessions resulted in the rapper's universal mega hit "99 Problems," but there was a slightly stranger track that has yet to surface in full. While recording his farewell release The Black Album, Jay Z enlisted producer (and mutual friend of Hova and MacKaye) Rick Rubin to produce some tracks. On one fateful recording session over a decade ago, the two properly crossed paths as Jay Z sampled Fugazi. Both are considered kingpins of their genres, both have a strange relationship with retirement, and both have impacted the music industry through the likes of Tidal and Dischord respectively. When you really think about it, Jay Z and Ian MacKaye aren't all that different.