POPSCREEN: Jay-Z

You know you’re doing big things when meager American currency, with its virtually worthless hundred-dollar bill, is too small for you. Just look at the newly re-ghettofied Jay-Z.

The video for his “Blue Magic,” the first single off his upcoming album, juxtaposes the gritty streets of Harlem against a plush world more akin to Jigga’s own, replete with champagne bottles, Rolls Royces, 500-Euro banknotes, and yes, even some bling!

More prominent than the bling and the foreign currency is the crack. Not to say there’s anything wrong with a little cook-up, but I don’t have nearly enough fingers to count all the visual and verbal references to the drug made throughout. What with all the subliminal-message-sending quick-cuts used by director Hype Williams, it’s hard not to come away from the video feeling a little strung out.

“Blue Magic,” produced by and featuring (for about thirty seconds) the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams, is a tad on the confused side as a video, blending slow-motion with frenetic editing, the hood with penthouses, and erratic dance moves with abstract paintings, not to mention leaps through various historical decades. But despite the discontinuities, “Blue Magic” will have you jonesing for more Jigga in no time.

—Joshua J. Kearney