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Vanity Fair recently featured Jay Z on their cover of their latest edition - including a chart that systematically details the extent of the corporate courtship in his music. See the infographic below. 

Obviously it's no secret that Jay Z is somewhat endeared with brands, what with his last album basically being sponsored by Samsung and what not, also let's not mention wife Beyonce's insistence on releasing new material solely for adverts. What this means is that Jay Z probably doesn't care one iota for what people might think of such a graph, nevertheless it is an interesting exercise in tracing the transforming view of luxury from a rap idol.

For example in the graph below (via. Vanity Fair) you'll see that Jay's desire for Cristal severely dissipates around 2011 when he accused them of being 'racist' boycotted them. Also we can see his taste in cars evolve over time: in 1996 he was all over Lexus, yet soon he graduated all the way to Mercedes, Porsche and Maybach, along with a seasoning of BMW. 

In a recent PR stunt that reeked of deja-vu Jay-z, like Rihanna and Beyonce before him took the tube to his O2 show alongside Chris Martin. The tour continues after opening at the Manchester Phones4u Arena.

Below: Jay Z live at London's O2 Arena