Since Kanye West’s self-destructive meltdown that wrapped up 2022, Jay-Z has returned to his former position of hip-hop’s wealthiest man. Since his humble beginnings in the early 1990s, selling records out of his car with Dame Dash, Hov has accumulated an unfathomable amount of money, and it is fair to say he has become an icon worldwide.
In the hip-hop world, certain artists have recognisable voices, and, unlike today, you could identify a rapper on a record solely due to how they sounded and their unique cadence. Whether it’s Snoop Dogg, Eminem Or Jay-Z, some artists have such a distinct tone when they rhyme you can instantly identify their presence on a track irrespective of whether or not you can see them.
Nowadays, things are very different. Some people attribute it to Migos, while others lay the blame at the feet of Drake. However, it’s actually a bit of both. Migos were a legendary trio, and during their tenure as hip-hop’s leading crew, they most certainly made some changes to the culture. For better or for worse, whether you love the Migos or hate them, it’s fair to say they made some lasting changes with regard to the kind of rap people consume.
During their reign of rap, the Migos popularised something called the triplet flow, and although they did not create the flow, their ingenious use for hooks became a practice that is now regarded as standard. In fact, some may argue that due to the Migos’ repeated use of the flow, it has now become the de facto flow of modern-day hip hop.
However, the fact that so many rappers use it in such a similar way means that, for the most part, it is pretty hard to identify a rapper by their flow. One must see their name clearly attached to the audio or watch the music video.
With his Brooklyn accent, Jay-Z is a painfully challenging voice to fake. However, one man can do it bang on, and that is professional impersonator Jay Pharoah. In a 2022 appearance on the popular US programme The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jay Pharoah took part in a game named ‘The Wheel Of Musical Impressions’. The game required him to perform a randomly generated song by an artist chosen similarly.
The result ended up with Pharoah nailing an impression of Jay-Z while having to perform the famous nursery rhyme, ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’. The impersonator did it so well that if one closed their eyes, they could actually be fooled into thinking it was Hov himself performing the children’s song. You can watch Pharoah (effectively Jay-Z) rapping the nursery rhyme as Jay-Z in the video below.
