Jay-Z announces new album

       

Jay-Z is going to be challenging his occasional collaborator, Kanye West, for the top of the charts.

The Brooklyn hip-hop king's new album, "Magna Carta Holy Grail," is due out July 4, he announced - via a Samsung ad during Game 5 of the NBA Finals - Sunday night.

That's just a little more than two weeks after the new album from West, "Yeezus," which officially comes out tomorrow (though, naturally, it's already been leaked). Jay-Z and West joined forces on 2011's "Watch the Throne."
The three-minute Samsung ad, which aired just before the end of the second quarter of the matchup between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs, required some attention from fans who were more likely wondering how big a lead the Spurs would take into the locker room at halftime. As Jay-Z chats with friends, including Pharrell Williams and Rick Rubin, he drops hints about the new record, implying the need to shake up the music business.
That's because the partnership with the electronics maker isn't just a sponsorship: Samsung will make "Magna Carta Holy Grail" available to Samsung Galaxy smartphone users for free 72 hours before the official release date. According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung paid $5 apiece for the albums - giving Jay-Z a cool $5 million in advance sales.
Jay-Z's last studio album, "The Blueprint 3," came out in 2009.