Not many fans will ever get a chance to meet Jay-Z face-to-face, but for Ellen Grossman, that was her official introduction to Hov, who just happened to sit next to her on the R train in New York City last fall. Since then, Grossman has attended Jay-Z's New Year's Eve concert at the Barclays Center and become more familiar with his music. So MTV News invited her to listen to his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail and share her thoughts.

Right off the bat, Grossman, a visual artist based in Manhattan, admitted that she might not catch every single lyric, but she did do a little research. "It sounds like he's really going deep into his heart and into fatherhood and even the meaning of fame," Grossman said of her early impressions. "[He's saying] that the money's nice, but there's life beyond that, that he's exploring. I picked that up from the papers but I felt it in the man too, when I met him. That he had a depth to him."

"I don't get all of the words but I get a lot of them and I'm really enjoying it," she added after an initial spin. "I like jazz and what's called 'new music' and I can relate to all the soundscapes, it's really innovative stuff."

We asked Grossman to listen to a select few tracks and share her thoughts.

'Holy Grail' feat. Justin Timberlake
"Even though it started out as a complaint about lovers and relationships, it was pretty mellow and you could go with it...but when Jay-Z came ...

Aside from the occasional emergency brain surgery, Mumford & Sons' daily routine remains unchanged: Wake up, don't shave, play a show somewhere, sell more records, play song Ping Pong, repeat.

And while Mumford have already made sly comments about the monotony of life on the road in their video — in that they went to great lengths to point out just how extraordinary the ordinary could be — they're doing it again in their brand new "Babel" clip, going to great lengths to show just how unending their cycle truly is. It may seem like they're rehashing old material, but, hey, these dudes are eternally on tour.

This time out, they take an artful approach: as the camera slowly pans across a gorgeous, yet dilapidated, hall — one equally filled with gilded arches and graffiti — the band perform, over and over, often times overlapping. Sure, we're wise enough to realize that this was all done in post (unless Mumford and Co. can teleport), but it's still a thrill to watch the latticework of this clip, and if one considers the treadmill this band has been on for the better part of four years now, well, it works on an entirely different level.

Because, sure, each day is essentially the same, and each performance probably doesn't vary all that much from the one that came before it, but at least Mumford & Sons are still trying to make the mundane marvelous. It would be easy for a band of their caliber, with a schedule like theirs, to ...

The feud between Jay-Z and Nas has come to be recognized as one of the greatest in hip-hop history, an inter-borough battle for rap supremacy between two talents at the top of their game, highlighted by several scathing tracks — Jay's "Takeover," Nas' epic K.O. "Ether," etc. — and an acrimony that went beyond wax ... simply put, these two guys didn't like each other.

And yet, after four years of back-and-forth jabs, in 2005 both men put bad blood aside, as Nas joined Jay onstage during his "I Declare War" concert, and HOV, acting as president of Def Jam, signing his former adversary to a deal. Since then, they've appeared on each other's songs, most recently the Magna Carta Holy Grail track "BBC," and though they probably don't exchange Christmas cards, Jay and Nas have forged a lasting peace, one built on mutual respect.

Still, in '05, their reconciliation was very big news, and when both men sat down with MTV News' Sway Calloway for a frank discussion of their feud, well, the hip-hop world paid attention ... especially when these former adversaries open up about the first time they were in the room together after being at war for nearly half a decade.

"This isn't, like, high school," Jay said. "You don't sit down with people and be like 'So, we friends now?' That's just not a reality; but anything that's shrouded in respect can grow. ... It's one of those things, at the time you would never think would happen in life, and it's happening, so it ...

"The Lone Ranger" opened nationwide on Wednesday, offering audiences a terrific leading role for up-and-comer Armie Hammer and another classically weird performance from Hollywood's favorite oddball, Johnny Depp. But now that the duo has saved the day, gotten the girl and ridden off into the sunset, what's next on the horizon for Hammer, Depp and their collaborators?

Armie Hammer
Since making his breakthrough as twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's "The Social Network," Hammer has steadily watched his profile rise in a number of big-league projects including Tarsem Singh's "Mirror, Mirror," and Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar." The handsome leading man will next appear onscreen in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." for "Sherlock Holmes" director Guy Ritchie, starring opposite . He's also scheduled to star in the film "2:22," about an air traffic controller who discovers that a light he investigates in the sky may be responsible for larger forces controlling various aspects of his life.

Johnny Depp
With box office moxie to spare, Depp continues to rule as a leading man, no matter how weird his performances get. Among the projects up next for the star is another "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, the fifth in the series, where he will once again play Captain Jack Sparrow. Before then, however, he stars in cinematographer-turned-director Wally Pfister's sci-fi feature debut, "Transcendence," opposite Kate Mara and Morgan Freeman. And for his "Pirates 4" director Rob Marshall, Depp is set to star as The Wolf in "Into The Woods," about a witch who conspires to teach lessons to a group of characters ...

Jay-Z cemented his legacy in rap long ago, but the Brooklyn MC has slowly been making his mark in the sports world. Hov threw down the gauntlet on his latest album Magna Carta Holy Grail and took aim at a big-time baseball agent.

"Scott Boras, you over baby/ Robinson Cano, you coming with me," Jay spit on , referencing his signing of the all-star Yankee second baseman.

Cano left Boras to sign with Jigga's Roc Nation Sports and CAA in April in a highly publicized deal. "We all know what kind of man he is and what he's all about," the Dominican Republic-born slugger told MTV News on June 17 when he walked the red carpet at the 40/40 Club in NYC to celebrate the club's 10th anniversary. "It's always good to be around people like him and share those good moments that he's into and get some good advice."

Boras may not be the biggest rap fan, but the jab didn't go unnoticed. "My music taste? I love jazz. I'm a huge Bernie Williams fan," he told Yahoo! Sports on July 3, referencing his former client, the four-time World Series champion and jazz musician.

The sports agent who was responsible for negotiating Alex Rodriguez's unbelievable quarter-of-a-billion-dollar baseball contract in 2001 also spoke to CBS Sports. In the interview he offered some key differentiation between he and Jay-Z when it comes to sports agency.

"Baseball has given us everything we have, so we give baseball everything we have, all of the time. We believe that this is the best ...

Justin Timberlake is doing more than just "bringing sexy back" with his racy new video for "Tunnel Vision," a seven-minute epic featuring legions of undulating, nude models (that has already been compared to Robin Thicke's similarly sexy "Blurred Lines").

However, while Thicke's video was pulled from YouTube, available only directly on VEVO, Timberlake's equally flesh-filled clip remains on the video-sharing platform, despite rumors to the contrary.

"While our Guidelines generally prohibit nudity, we make exceptions when it is presented in an educational, documentary or artistic context, and take care to add appropriate warnings and age-restrictions," a Google rep said Friday (July 5) with regard to why Timberlake's video remained on the site.

Currently, when users click through to JT's video on YouTube, they'll be faced with an explicit content warning and asked to click through to watch via Timberlake's VEVO channel. Thicke's video, in contrast, cannot be found in its unrated version on YouTube proper. It can, however, be found on VEVO.

"Tunnel Vision" features Timberlake dancing languidly, as well as a bevy of nude models projected onto his face. It premiered on July 2 on Timberlake's Myspace page and hit YouTube on July 3, where it has racked up more than a million views.

In essence, "Tunnel Vision" contains just as much nudity as "Blurred Lines," which YouTube pulled down back in March, but the Google rep wouldn't comment further on why Timberlake's video proved the exception to the rule.

David Bowie's "The Next Day" video — starring Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard — was also pulled from ...

How does a 16-year-old girl from Ontario, Canada go from relative obscurity to producing a track on Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail? Well, luckily for Ebony Oshunrinde aka Wondagurl, she has a great ear for dancehall samples and a pretty cool relationship with G.O.O.D. Music and Grand Hustle signee Travis Scott.

It all started after Wondagurl caught some inspiration after hearing Pusha T, Travi$ Scott and Popcaan's dancehall-inspired "Blocka."

"I was at home one day and I was looking for reggae samples for a while and I finally found this one that was crazy, Sizzla 'Solid as a Rock,'" she told MTV News of the first steps she took to cook up the beat for Hov's "Crown" on Friday (July 5) during a Skype interview. "I took it and I cut it up and I put it in the software FL Studio and I started building around it, adding 808s."

Originally Wondagurl had intended for Pusha and Travis to perform on the track. She figured after hearing "Blocka" that the pair would be receptive to another reggae-laced tune, which is why she chose Sizzla's beloved 2002 single "Solid as A Rock." Her instincts were right, and while Scott dug the beat, he had different plans for the instrumental. "Travis Scott said he was going to add some stuff to it and then later on a few days afterwards he messaged me saying he's about to change my life and a few days later he told me that I was on Jay-Z's album," Wondagurl recalled. "At first I didn't ...

There's a certain amount of intrigue that comes with being Jay-Z. Beyond the sheer allure of his current celebrity, Hov has captivated his audience for years with detailed accounts of his drug-dealing past, former demons and braggadocio.

It all officially started on his classic 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt where the lavishly laced MC with no chart-topping singles or platinum plaques, but dark underworld ties boasted: "I'm still spendin' money from '88."

In the years that followed, we'd learn just as much about Jay from his lyrics as his interviews — maybe more. On 2000's The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, he opened up about the child that he lost with a former girlfriend ("This Can't Be Life") and his resentment toward his absentee dad ("Where Have You Been"). The next year, on The Blueprint, Hov explored his distrust for women on "Song Cry" and on 2006's Kingdom Come he shared the pain he felt from the 2005 death of his nephew. It isn't all pain, in 2012 just days after his the birth of his daughter Blue Ivy, Jay dropped a proud ode to his new love.

On his latest, Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay-Z continues to open up in his lyrics, giving listeners perspective of his life and innermost thoughts. Here's what we learned.

Being a Dad Sometimes Scares The Hell Out of Jay
Hov is a proud papa, but on "Jay Z Blue (Daddy Dearest)," he confronts some pretty serious demons. Jay has rhymed before about growing up without his dad, who skipped out on his mom after his uncle ...

"It's Barbie, bitch!": With those immortal words — along with a pencil sketch of her face — Nicki Minaj made her entree into the world of selfies, food porn and filtered pets known as Instagram.

Frustrated with copycat Instagram accounts, Minaj took to Twitter on Friday (July 5) to announce that she's taking matters into her hands and creating her own photofeed, under the name @allpinkbarbiedreamhouse.

"I do NOT have Instagram. OnikaM is NOT me. Guess I have to make a real one to counter attack. I'm sure that's why Instagram won't delete it," Nicki wrote on Twitter. The handle Minaj mentions in the tweet is a private account.

Since joining, Minaj has posted four photos, one featuring the singer in the classic "my babe caught me sleeping pose" (a.k.a. a closed-eye selfie), one that appears to be a reblogged professional shot with Nelly and Pharrell and a few artistic renderings of the singer. Since joining, Minaj has amassed more than 60,000 followers and several thousand comments and likes.

With 31 million fans on Facebook and 16 million Twitter followers, it won't be long before Minaj's Barbz start flooding her feed full force.

Minaj has had a rather embattled relationship with her fans in the past when it comes to social media. She quit Twitter last year for a spell after a fan site leaked some of her tunes.

However, Minaj's fans have already hit up her since-reinstated Twitter in droves to show their unbridled enthusiasm for Minaj's new social stream, with one fan reminding the rapper of an old ...