The former President of the United States of America honored his long-time friend with a prestigious award last week. Barack Obama enlisted Shawn Corey Carter—better known as Jay-Z—into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. This 21 Grammy award-winning artist impacted the world forever last Thursday by turning into the first rapper to ever be enrolled into the music hall. He is one of the top-rated artists ever.

Over the time span of his career, Jay-Z sold well over 100 million copies of his music. Back in 2006, MTV positioned him as one of the All-Time Greatest MCs.

Three of his albums—The Blueprint, Reasonable Doubt, and The Black Album— quickly became known as some of Rolling Stone’s greatest collections of all time. In 2017, Forbes evaluated his total assets at $810 million. Such aggregate resources make him one of America’s wealthiest artists in the music genre of hip hop.

Highlights in the life of Jay-Z

Jay-Z is more than just a lyricist so noteworthy that he belongs in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He also has a business partnership with a sports bar in New York, the 40/40. He helped create the Rocawear clothing line, served as a pioneer of Def Jam Recordings, he’s a prime supporter of Roc-A-Fella Records and the writer of Roc Nation. In addition to all this credibility, Jay-Z established Roc Nation Sports, as well and is an affirmed sports agent for the MLB and NBA.

As a lyrical craftsman, he holds the record for most number one collections by a performing artist on the Billboard 200. He has a total of 13 hits thus far. The rap mogul likewise had four songs that landed at number one on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list as well over the years.

Back in 2009, Billboard ranked him in the top-ten best recording artists of the 2000s.

The music conglomerate then proceeded to also honor him as the fifth top solo male music artist and their fourth top rapper of all time. Rolling Stone likewise positioned the business prodigy as the 88th-most iconic artist ever to perform in the entertainment industry.

Jay-Z misses ceremony

Despite receiving such an iconic award and having it acknowledged by one of America’s former chief commanders, Jay-Z didn’t appear at the award ceremony to accept the honor.

His life partner, Beyoncé, gave birth to twins over the weekend. Many of his fans believe this is the reason why he refused to attend his induction into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. John Platt, who is the lyrical genius’s long-time friend and music distributor, kindly accepted the award on his behalf.

Shortly after the ceremony, the rapper took to Twitter to thank all the individuals who gave him inspiration. In those tweets, he strongly provided his utmost gratitude to Obama.