THE HOROLOGY OF HOV

A close look at some of the watches from rap king Jay-Z's vaunted personal collection.

- CAM WOLF

IN the late 1990s, Jay-Z was ushered into a secret vault and reemerged with an exceedingly rare Audemars Piguet watch. Not long after, he and his crew were initially refused entry to a jewellery store. “I don’t have enough eyes to watch all of them,” he remembers the shopkeeper saying—right before a white couple rang the boutique’s bell and strolled in, allowing Jay and company to follow suit. Once inside, Jay-Z overheard the other customer ask to try on a new watch. Jay asked to see it too.

“The [sales] guy looks at me like, It’s too late now,” he recalls. “He can’t deny me.”

That's when Jay pulled back his sleeve to reveal his new AP. The employee jumped back in awe. The customer had one question: How much was it? The answer made him clutch the woman he was with.

That was the first time, Jay says, he understood a watch’s power. “I walked out the store saying the Audemars was worth every dollar,” he says. “In that moment, it put everybody on an equal playing field.”

Since that day in the boutique, Jay has amassed one of the world’s most impressive watch collections—and changed the game, too, by collaborating with Audemars Piguet and Hublot back when official partnerships between Swiss luxury watchmakers and pop-culture figures barely existed. All while dropping bars like, “I don’t got the bright watch, I got the right watch.”

Today, his collection includes everything from historic Patek Philippes to one-of-one Richard Milles. “His palate is just phenomenal,” says the watch adviser Alex Todd, who works with the rapper.

Take a look inside Jay's world-class watch collection, a selection of pieces that offer a rare glimpse at the range of his enthusiasms and the depths of his appreciation for the art form.

ROLEX