Def Jam Records President and CEO Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter can add another accomplishment to his growing list of achievements.
The mogul/rapper ranked number 46 on Vanity Fair’s annual New Establishment power List, joining Oprah Winfrey (9) and Richard Parsons of Time Warner (11) as the only African-Americans on the list.
Carter is also one of three musical artists that made the list, along with U2 lead singer Bono (24) and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger (56).
Carter, who recently aligned with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and MTV to bring attention to the world’s water crisis, is gearing up for a world tour.
The outing is slated to kick off this month with stops in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
This is the first year Jay-Z has made the list of powerful moguls, which also includes Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Wal-Mart’s CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone and others.
The issue hit newsstands last week and features Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their baby Suri on the cover.
In related news, Jay-Z recently confirmed that he will release a new album by the end of this year.
Entertainment Weekly reports Jay-Z will release the highly-anticipated recording, titled Kingdom Come, this fall.
Among the featured producers are Timbaland, Kanye West , Dr. Dre and Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, who Jay said crafted beats for a song
called “Beach Chair.”
Kingdom Come will be the first album from Jay-Z since 2003’s The Black Album.
That album was supposed to be Jay-Z’s final release, but he admitted an urge to return to the studio and started working on the project over the summer.
“Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good,” Jay-Z explained to Entertainment Weekly.
Fans can expect the new album to be “more in the vein of The Black Album than The Blueprint, ” said the mogul, who admitted to dabbling with “different types of music.”