JAY-Z Speaks On What Musicians Influenced Him On '4:44'

With 4:44, JAY-Z has a hit rap album as a 47-year old.

It's a pretty neat trick to do that in what's considered to be a young man's game. (It's also a trick we suspect soon-to-be 45-year old Eminem is about to repeat.)

In a new interview with Rap Radar/TIDAL, Hov spoke on what non-rap musical influences helped inspire him to keep on pushing in his middle age.

"Before I started this album, I studied like not just hip hop, any genre. I studied Prince, I studied Michael [Jackson]. Bono [of U2] had 'Beautiful Day' when he was like 40 I think. Maybe 42. " Jay tells the podcast. "I really had to like think about what I wanted to say [on this album]. Think about what was the next thing, the next thing to I wanted to say. I didn't want to just make an album just to put out some music, I wanted it to be important. So it took me a minute to get to that point."