MUBI will stream Jay-Z in 8 exclusively in the UK from Saturday 19 September, with the first two episodes of the eight episode documentary series arriving on the same day.
The series, Rick Rubin’s documentary directing debut, is built from hours of candid conversation between the pair. It follows Jay-Z through his back catalogue as he breaks down his writing process and traces how his lyrics reflect his childhood, the experiences that shaped him, and the world he moved through as his career grew.
New episodes will land in pairs each Saturday. Chapters three and four debut on 26 September, chapters five and six on 3 October, and the run closes with chapters seven and eight on 10 October.
MUBI has acquired worldwide rights excluding North America, where HBO will release the series. It was produced under Rubin’s Tetragrammaton banner and is executive produced by Shawn Carter and Rick Rubin, the pairing behind McCartney 3,2,1. Daniel Kaluuya is also an executive producer.
Travelling song by song through Jay-Z’s catalogue, Rubin curates a playlist as a way into his key influences, formative years, and approach to making records. As Jay-Z talks through the words and music that fed the work, the series presents his art and his life as inseparable.
Producers are Leila Mattimore and David Rohde, with Harlin Lawal and Will Mavronicolas as co-producers. Bradford Young is director of photography, and Walter Fasano and Christian Sandino-Taylor edited the series. The featured participants are Jay-Z and Rick Rubin.
The weekly drop schedule, with runtimes and featured tracks, is as follows:
- Chapter One, Saturday 19 September (41 minutes): Intro, Meet The Parents, Can’t Knock The Hustle, What More Can I Say.
- Chapter Two, Saturday 19 September (37 minutes): Brooklyn’s Finest, I Love The Dough (featuring Jay-Z and Angela Winbush), What More Can I Say.
- Chapter Three, Saturday 26 September (41 minutes): Lyrical Exercise, This Can’t Be Life (featuring Beanie Sigel), You Must Love Me, 4:44.
- Chapter Four, Saturday 26 September (38 minutes): Where Have You Been, Allure, Where I’m From, Can I Live, Don’t You Know.
- Chapter Five, Saturday 3 October (41 minutes): U Don’t Know, Politics As Usual, Regrets.
- Chapter Six, Saturday 3 October (52 minutes): Jail, Ignorant Shit, Hovi Baby, Kill Jay-Z, 99 Problems, Threat, Dead Presidents II, Public Service Announcement (Interlude).
- Chapter Seven, Saturday 10 October (46 minutes).
- Chapter Eight, Saturday 10 October (35 minutes): New York (Concept de Paris), The Story Of O.J., No Church In The Wild, Family Feud, Legacy.
MUBI is a London-headquartered streaming service, distributor, and production company founded in 2007 by Efe Cakarel. The platform said the series is a close study of Jay-Z’s lyric writing, and of how those words map onto the life that produced them.
Image credits: MUBI
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