JAY-Z and Rick Rubin’s Eight-Part HBO Documentary Sets September 18 Premiere

JAY-Z will revisit his career and creative philosophy in JAŸ-Z IN 8, an eight-part HBO documentary series directed by Rick Rubin. The series begins September 18, 2026, with two episodes debuting on HBO and HBO Max before the remaining chapters roll out weekly.

The format is deliberately conversational. Rubin sits with JAY-Z to discuss his music, lyrics, life experiences and creative process, creating an unusually extended portrait of one of hip-hop’s most influential artists. The project is not framed as a conventional archival biography but as a sustained exchange between rapper and producer.

Their professional history gives the series an especially strong point of entry. Rubin produced “99 Problems,” one of the defining tracks from JAY-Z’s 2003 album The Black Album, and the new documentary uses that relationship as a foundation for examining artistic risk, discipline and reinvention.

The series arrives during a milestone period for JAY-Z, whose career is being revisited around major anniversaries connected to Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint. That timing gives the documentary a broader cultural function: it places one of hip-hop’s central figures in conversation with the history of the genre while allowing him to interpret that history in his own voice.

JAŸ-Z IN 8 is executive produced by Shawn Carter, Rick Rubin and Daniel Kaluuya, among others, and produced through HBO Documentary Films and Tetragrammaton. Its eight-episode structure gives HBO a substantial music-documentary event for the fall and gives audiences a rare long-form look at the artistic machinery behind a major Black cultural figure.