Backstage Pass

With the flurry of high-profile hip-hop albums arriving in the next few weeks - from Eminem, The Game, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, Fat Joe, Young Jeezy, The Clipse and Nas - the questions about how well Jay-Z's return-from-retirement album, "Kingdom Come" (Roc-a-Fella), will do have been flying for months.

Show us what you got, young H.O.V.A.

Well, if the marketing campaign is any indication, Jay has them all beat. His record is so hot, he has other people paying for its advertising.

The ad for Budweiser Select - which, by the way, recently named him co-brand director - is essentially a video for "Show Me What You Got" with a few beers thrown in. And the tagline isn't about the beer, it's the release date for "Kingdom Come," which is Nov. 21, in case, you've been skipping commercials again.

In TNT's new campaign for the NBA, Jay talks about competition. The final image, however, isn't related to games on the cable channel, but to "Kingdom Come" and its release date.

Other musicians have done this kind of trade-off before. Heck, Radio Shack is still running commercials that let people know The Rolling Stones are on tour.

But Jay-Z has taken this sort of marketing campaign to a new level, seemingly without even breaking a sweat. Hands up and wave. And wave. And wave.