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Out of the blue, with little more than a floating Instagram pic for a warning, the friendly neighborhood god MC    Jay-Z decided to drop in during halftime of the Spurs/Heat game to announce the July 4th release date of his 12th studio album “Magna Carta The Holy Grail.” Needless to say, the internet stood still before exploding in a frenzy of admiration and analysis as the three minute clip left as many questions as it answered. Here are a few things we managed to get from the preview along with a few inquiries of our own.

1) Samsung is offering a free copy of the album to the first one-million Samsung Galaxy S 3, 4 and Galaxy note users. The story goes that in order to make that happen, Samsung bought a million copies at five dollars each to give away. That would mean the album is platinum with sales of a million copies before it hit stores. But will the RIAA certify it as such if it’s part of a larger deal like this? 

2) Jay has never slacked when it comes to his tracks. And with appearances by Timbaland, Pharrell, Swizzy and Rick Rubin, it doesn’t look like that’s going to change now. But Hov has usually anointed a fresher face producer (ie Hit-Boy and 9th Wonder) to match wits with the heavyweights on his albums. Who’ll be the new board bomber to get the nod this time around?  

3) During the clip Jay can be seen explaining to Rick Rubin: “The album is about this duality of how do you navigate your way through this whole thing, through success, through failures, through all this and remain yourself.” But in another section he’s quoted as saying “We don’t have any rules, everyone’s trying to figure it out. That’s why the Internet is like the Wild West… the Wild, Wild West. We need to write the new rules.” The original magna carta was written to limit the power of kings. Can the king of the triple entendre write the rules while still being so entrenched in the status quo?

4)What the heck is this app that they are releasing the album on for Samsung?  The tech giant previously bought mSpot to power its subscription-based Music Hub app for smartphones but it hasn’t really caught on. Will this be like the Duracell Powermat, where Jay attached his name to old tech that didn’t catch on to help revive it?

5) A few weeks ago Jay-Z instagrammed this photo with Nas and Kanye in the studio so are God’s Son and Yeezus Christ slated to appear on the album? 

Do you have questions? Let us know on Twitter @TheUbanDaily or on Facebook

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