After 19 years and 12 No. 1 albums, the artist formerly known as Jay-Z decided to, in true Diddy fashion, kick his hyphen to the curb.
Jay Z—as he’s now known—was born Shawn Corey Carter, and adopted the rap moniker “Jay-Z” as an homage to his musical mentor, Jaz-O, as well as the J and Z subway lines that stopped at Marcy Avenue by the housing project where he grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
He chose to lose the hyphen following the release of his twelfth studio album, Magna Carta... Holy Grail, and made the announcement on June 18. The name of his website has been changed to "JAY Z's Life+Times," and his music is now listed under "Jay Z" on iTunes.
And, while Jay Z is happily married to the R&B diva Beyoncé Knowles, what will happen to that sad, lonely little punctuation mark?
A hilarious Craigslist personals posting in the "men seeking women" section may shed some light on this. The post, entitled, "Single Black Hyphen seeks understanding apostrophe - 19," sees Jay Z's now-single hyphen on the prowl for a new partner.
“A little about me: I've just ended a long relationship,” it reads. “(In fact, I was dumped. . . after 19 years -- by someone I felt part of and thought I could trust. He used to say: ‘You complete me’.)… Still hurting.”
You can check out the rest of the funny post below: