At the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, the album received a Grammy Award nomination for Album of the Year, while the title track was nominated for Song of the Year and " The Story of O.J." was nominated for Record of the Year.
On July 5, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in recognition of one million copies purchased by Sprint and offered to consumers as free downloads. The album spawned three singles, the title track " 4:44", " Bam" and "Family Feud", as well as several music videos, directed by a variety of high-profile collaborators. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 262,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, making it Jay-Z's 14th album to top the chart.
The album was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised its emotional and personal content. It also has additional vocal contributions from Blue Ivy Carter, James Fauntleroy, Kim Burrell and The-Dream. It features guest appearances from Frank Ocean, Damian Marley, Beyoncé and Jay-Z's mother, Gloria Carter. James Blake and Dominic Maker also contributed production to the album's bonus tracks. The album was recorded from December 2016 to June 2017, and produced by No I.D., with additional contributions by Jay-Z himself. Like Jay-Z's previous album, Magna Carta Holy Grail (2013), 4:44 was not preceded by any singles. On the same day, the album was made available to other streaming platforms, such as Apple Music, Google Play Music and Amazon Music.
A physical edition was released on July 7, including three additional tracks.
For a short time, on July 2, the album was made available for free digital download in Tidal's site.
The album is the first in a planned series of music exclusives from the Sprint–Tidal partnership. It was released on June 30, 2017, through Roc Nation as an exclusive to Sprint and Tidal customers. As a result, Magna Carta was able to go platinum on the day of its release, due to a deal with Samsung that offered the first million copies for free to their customers.4:44 is the thirteenth studio album by American rapper Jay-Z. Just before JAY-Z put out his last LP, 2013’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, the RIAA changed the rules for going gold and platinum so that digital sales would count toward an artist’s achievements previously, a record had to be out for at least 30 days. Earlier this week, it became available to all Tidal users, with a physical release on the way. On Friday, 4:44 was released exclusively through Tidal and was only available to pre-existing subscribers, as well as Sprint customers.
(The Sprint-supported downloads won’t count toward the album’s chart ranking.) While free to consumers, the downloads on that site were purchased by Sprint and were all counted toward the album’s platinum status. Roc Nation representatives told Billboard that the certification reflected 1 million downloads from -a website sponsored by Sprint-and no streams were applied. It is JAY-Z’s 17th platinum album (13th solo), according to the RIAA. Just five days after its release, JAY-Z’s new album 4:44 has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), meaning it has sold the equivalent of one million copies.