Jay-Z Etches New Blueprint in Video Game World

Oct. 27, 2009 — -- President Barack Obama is getting high praise from one of his most visible pop culture supporters through the campaign and beyond: Jay-Z.

"I feel he's done a great job and I feel he's not running away from issues, he's taking them head on, which is going to put him in the line of fire of criticism, but that's part of his job description," the 39-year-old hip-hop impresario told ABCNews.com Monday. "It's not going to all be rosy. But you've got to figure that we just went through eight years of the worst administration ever. It's going to take at least two years to uncover all that."

Jay-Z waxed poetic about the president, the future of hip-hop, and the New York Yankees while promoting his latest project. Having dominated the realm of popular music, he's off to conquer the world of video games, lending his beats and rhymes to "DJ Hero," in stores today. A special edition of the game, "DJ Hero Renegade Edition," features a turntable controller and two compilation CDs, one from Jay-Z and one from fellow rap all-star Eminem.

"The reach it has and the blending of different genres of music, it was like 'Guitar Hero' for me taken to the next level," Jay-Z said. "This has rock and soul and hip-hop ... original mixes that DJs contributed to the game."

The rapper hopes the game will allow players to dabble in beat-mixing without shelling out tons of dough. ("DJ Hero" retails for $119.99, "Renegade Edition" for $199.99.)

"I think people are making their own playlists and they're their own DJs so to speak, they just didn't have the technical devices to really do it and do it in a loose way," he said. "You had to have the equipment to be a DJ, invest in the equipment, but this is a fun way to enter into it."