--- title: "Jay-Z’s ‘retirement’ album The Black Album turns 23 after selling 463,000 copies in its first week" url: https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-black-album-23-years/ published: 2026-11-13T11:57:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-13T11:57:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Jay-Z’s ‘retirement’ album The Black Album turns 23 after selling 463,000 copies in its first week Jay-Z's The Black Album, sold as his farewell in 2003, turns 23 on November 14 after a 463,000-copy first week and a return to No. 1. Jay-Z sold his goodbye. On November 14, 2003, The Black Album arrived billed as the Brooklyn rapper’s final record, and fans bought 463,000 copies of the farewell in seven days. Twenty-three years later, the “retirement” looks like the longest intermission in hip hop. He was back recording by 2005. But the album built around the idea of walking away is still the biggest seller of his 2000s run, and it went quadruple platinum in the United States in 2023. ## A different producer for nearly every song The plan was a farewell tour of the best beatmakers alive. Jay-Z wanted a fresh producer on each track, and the credits read like a hall of fame: Just Blaze, Kanye West, The Neptunes, Timbaland, Eminem, DJ Quik, 9th Wonder and Rick Rubin all took a turn. Pharrell Williams turns up on the record too, without a guest credit. That roster produced the three singles. “Change Clothes” and “Dirt off Your Shoulder” both cracked the top 10 of the US singles chart, while “99 Problems,” the Rick Rubin rock-rap stomp, peaked at No. 30 and became the song people still shout at concerts. Sessions ran from July to October 2003 across four studios: Baseline in New York, Hit Factory Criteria in Miami, The Mansion in Los Angeles and 54 Sound in Ferndale, Michigan. ## The numbers, week by week The opening week put it at No. 1 on the US albums chart, Jay-Z’s sixth chart-topper, keeping the Tupac: Resurrection soundtrack and G-Unit’s debut Beg for Mercy at No. 2 and No. 3. Then it did something unusual: after slipping to No. 4 in week two, it climbed back to the top in week three. - Week 1: 463,000 copies, No. 1 - Week 2: 288,000 copies, No. 4 - Week 3: 288,000 copies, back to No. 1 - Week 4: 124,000 copies, No. 10 Add those up and the album moved 1,163,000 copies in its first 28 days, a pace of roughly 41,500 a day. By July 2013 its US tally stood at 3,516,000. ## The record other people kept remixing In December 2004, Roc-A-Fella pressed The Black Album on vinyl as bare vocals, with no beats underneath, so DJs could rebuild it. Danger Mouse had already got there first: his Grey Album laid Jay-Z’s verses over The Beatles’ White Album. When EMI tried to stop it spreading, activists staged “Grey Tuesday” on February 24, 2004, and more than 100,000 copies were downloaded that day. Jay-Z, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr had all approved of the project, according to the album’s history. The same songs also turned up on Collision Course, his 2004 mashup EP with Linkin Park, which reused “Encore,” “Dirt off Your Shoulder” and “99 Problems.” ## How long did retirement last? Roughly three years. The comeback album, Kingdom Come, landed in November 2006, and Badiyaa has covered [the 680,000-copy first week of Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come comeback](https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-kingdom-come-20-years/). The man who sang about leaving has since sold out stadiums: his [three Yankee Stadium shows grossed $42.3 million](https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-yankee-stadium-42-million-record/), and he is booked to [headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show at SoFi Stadium](https://badiyaa.com/jay-z-super-bowl-lxi-halftime-show-headliner/). The Black Album lost the 2005 Grammy for Best Rap Album to The College Dropout, the debut of Kanye West, who had produced “Encore” and “Lucifer” for it. Its 23rd birthday is Saturday, November 14. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: The Black Album (Jay-Z album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Album_(Jay-Z_album)) *Image: Richard Humphrey, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*