Jay Z has been all over the news recently for his work musically (new album "Magna Carta Holy Grail"), his work cinematically (producing the soundtrack for "The Great Gatsby"), and his work athletically (becoming a sports agent and signing Robinson Cano and Kevin Durant). Thursday's headline deals with his work grammatically however. Word has gotten round that the rapper would prefer to go by the name "Jay Z," dropping the hyphen previously included in his alias.
Joe Levy, an editor for music magazine Billboard, reported on Twitter that he had spoken with sources at the Roc-A-Fella label who confirmed that Hov has adopted a hyphen-less spelling. According to Levy, the magazine will abide by the rapper's wishes and spell the name minus punctuation from here on out.
Breaking: Jay Z has dropped the hyphen from his name, according to his label. I am not kidding. (Wish I was.) Copy editors: take note.
— Joe Levy (@RealJoeLevy) July 18, 2013
It's a switch that's been a long time coming. As far back as 2011's "Watch The Throne," credits have listed the rapper's name without the hyphen. And most people probably haven't caught on because Jay hasn't said anything about it, and normally when Jay wants something to be known, he lets it air, such as scheduling a performance on top of David Letterman's marquee.
Jay probably figures that he's got better things to worry about, or realizes that his life is so charmed he could care less what we call him. So far, Wikipedia has yet to formally make the change, but we at Mstars (at least this writer) will abide by Jay's wishes. Don't expect any new entries in next year's AP Stylebook either.
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