2 was certified five times platinum by the RIAA and won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in 1999. The album featured the international hits ' Can I Get A.' and ' Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)', which both reached top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100. Hard Knock Life was released in September 1998 and became his first number-one album in the United States. 1 (1997), which saw Jay-Z collaborating with producers such as Sean 'Puff Daddy' Combs and Teddy Riley, peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and earned a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Its singles included ' Dead Presidents', ' Ain't No Nigga' and ' Can't Knock the Hustle', all of which reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart. The album peaked at number twenty-three on the United States Billboard 200 record chart and has since been recognized as a seminal work of the hip hop genre.

Jay-Z later founded Roc-A-Fella Records with close friends Damon Dash and Kareem 'Biggs' Burke and released his debut studio album Reasonable Doubt in June 1996. Jay-Z began his music career in the 1980s, building a reputation as a fledgling rapper in his hometown of Brooklyn and collaborating with his mentor and fellow rapper Jaz-O.

As of December 2014, Jay-Z has sold 29,179,000 studio albums in United States. American artist Jay-Z has released thirteen solo studio albums, four collaboration albums, one live album, one compilation album, one soundtrack album, two extended plays, one hundred and fifteen singles (including forty-five as a featured artist), nine promotional singles and eighty-two music videos.

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