Apparently, this face turns Beyonce on.

Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail has been a commercial success and although he failed to complete his quest to force the entire music industry to adopt his new rules, he scored an interesting victory with the title track. With the new video for the song featuring Justin Timberlake now hot on the airwaves, let’s review what Hip-Hop’s so called king has achieved.

Prior to the release of its supporting visual, “Holy Grail” climbed to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 without any major promotional push by either Jay-Z and Timberlake. Additionally, Magna Carta has sold over 912,000 copies via retailers in the US since July 4 – not including the copies given away to Samsung Galaxy users – and continues to hold a spot in the Billboard 200 top 10.

So, what does this all mean? Jay-Z’s clever campaign orchestrated with the assistance of Samsung ensured that his music was plugged on several platforms while he focused on developing his summer tour and made few broadcast appearances. Simply, by utilising the power of the digital media, Jay-Z cut the usual workload needed to promote an album – television performances and dozens of radio interviews – in half.

Interestingly, Jay-Z released Magna Carta mere weeks after announcing it and “Holy Grail” became a hit almost accidentally – I’m naively assuming that radio payola was not a factor here – which is quite rare for any artist. Of course, such success if almost impossible for any act other than rappers because of the nature of Hip-Hop consumers, who generally still buy albums, but I’m eager to see this new rules model applied to R&B.

Is the delay of Beyonce’s album stemming from plans for a Jay-Z-styled takeover? We’ll have to wait for that answer but watch her husband’s “Holy Grail” video below: