“Holy Grail” is a music video and song by American hip hop artist Jay-Z from his twelfth studio album Magna Carta Holy Grail. It features vocals from singer Justin Timberlake and serves as the album’s first single.
The music video was directed by Anthony Mandler.
The track was produced by The-Dream, Timbaland and Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, with additional production from No ID and contains elements of Nirvana‘s 1991 hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit“.
The music video was directed by Anthony Mandler and was released on August 29, 2013 on Facebook, making social media history as the first time a clip from major artists debuted strictly on the site.
Dubbed a “visual” rather than a “music video”, the piece is a remixed version of the original album version, featuring pitch shifted vocals and a change in the song structure. The visual was critically acclaimed for both its imagery, and remixed vocals.
Kyle Anderson from Entertainment Weekly praised the piece’s imagery, describing its nightmarish sequences as “arresting”, and complimented the remixed video version of the song which he thought was “miles beyond the album version”.
