Jay-Z made his fans work to uncover the details of his new album.
The rapper revealed the official tracklisting of his forthcoming set “Magna Carta Holy Grail” via a viral scavenger hunt on Saturday, which saw his fans tracking down the locations of thirteen black binders containing the track names that were hidden in different spots around his native Brooklyn.
Included in each of the binders were two blacked-out pages in addition to the thirteen containing the track names, suggesting the inclusion of some secret bonus content on the album.
As mentioned by Vibe, Jay-Z utilized a similar scavenger hunt marketing scheme for his 2011 novel “Decoded,” in which different pages from the book were hidden in various cities.
“Magna Carta Holy Grail” is the subject of an unprecedented marketing deal with Samsung in which the first million copies of the album will be made available for free via an app available only to Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and Galaxy Note users. Last week Billboard decided not to count sales of the million albums pre-purchased by Samsung on their Billboard 200 chart, despite appeals from Jay-Z and his camp. The album will be available for download via the app on July 4 and to everyone on July 7.
Jay-Z is embarking on his “Legends of the Summer” concert tour with Justin Timberlake beginning next month. You can get a full list of tour dates further down.
“Magna Carta Holy Grail” tracklist (watch an Instragram video uploaded by one of the lucky binder-holders here):
1.Picasso baby
2.Heaven
3.Versus
4.Tom Ford
4. Beach Is Better
6. FuckWithMeYouKnowIGotIt
7. Oceans
8. F.U.T.W.
9. Part II (On the Run)
10. BBC
11. La Familia
12. Jay-Z Blue
13. Nickles & Dimes
“Legends of the Summer” tour dates:
July 17 Toronto, ON Rogers Centre
July 19 New York, NY Yankee Stadium**
July 22 Chicago, IL Soldier Field
July 26 San Francisco, CA Candlestick Park
July 28 Los Angeles, CA Rose Bowl
July 31 Vancouver, BC BC Place Stadium
August 4 Hershey, PA Hershey Stadium
August 6 Detroit, MI Ford Field
August 8 Baltimore, MD M&T Bank Stadium
August 10 Boston, MA Fenway Park
August 13 Philadelphia, PA Citizens Bank Park
August 16 Miami, FL Sun Life Stadium
Will you be buying “Magna Carta Holy Grail” when it comes out? Sound off in the comments.