The Blu Cantrell Conspiracy: Did Jay Z Sabotage R&B Stars to Elevate Beyoncé?
Jay Z under fire: allegations of the Carters sabotaging rival singers of the 90s and 2000s, moving them out of the way to secure Beyoncé’s #1 spot
Today, I finally opened my messages from an Instagram user named Alice_Redpill, an account that has been repeatedly tagging Jess and I in a ton of jarring conspiracies involving Jay-Z, R-Kelly, LA Reid and other hip-hop pioneers connected to Diddy, all from behind an American flag avatar.
Turns out, Alice is just her based online nickname. Her real name is“Shar,” a half-black/half-white stay-at-home mother living in Arizona with a deep understanding of 90s and 2000s R&B and hip-hop. Her mother, she tells me, worked briefly as a receptionist at DMX’s label Ruff Ryders where she chatted with several household names over the phone.
Shar started flooding my DMs with a sea of minute-long voice notes, suggesting new theories for me to examine, piling onto my already overflowing queue of stories. Usually I ignore unsolicited voice notes from strangers- especially when there’s 15 in a row- but something told me there was some gold hidden here. I started listening one by one while enjoying a rare hot-bar meal. Mashed potatoes and rotisserie chicken at 2 PM may sound like an odd choice for someone living in Ozempicland, but ended up being the comfort food I needed to digest the heavy plots this woman was about to feed me.
It started off with familiar gossip—rumors I’ve heard before about Jada Pinkett Smith’s undying love for Tupac, supposedly never loving Will Smith the same way. But she quickly shifted gears to speak about a topic that’s rarely covered by even YouTube’s biggest gossip channels: the music industry's alleged involvement in the downfall of R&B singer Blu Cantrell.
“Hey ladies, when your man want get buck wild, just go ahead and hit em up style, Blu Cantrell?” I asked, a singer I totally forgot about, but whose lyrics are impossible to forget. Anyone who grew up in the 2000s surely remembers this catchy hit, empowering women to get back at their cheating ex by maxing out his credit card at the nearest department store. Blu wasn’t sitting home in pajamas crying about the breakup, she was cruising around town in a silver Beamer heading on a “shopping spree-a,” the Millenia female’s way of handling heartbreak.
A quick Google search reveals that Blu Cantrell, born Tiffany Cobb, began her music career as a backup singer for none other than Diddy—then known as Puff Daddy—before being quickly discovered by music executive L.A. Reid, who signed her to Arista Records.
In 2001, just a year after signing her first contract, her debut single, “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” climbed to number two on the US Billboard Hot 100, the girl-power anthem quickly establishing her as an industry rising star. Her next hit was the iconic 2000s duet, “Breathe,” a collaboration with Sean Paul. However, in 2004, Arista Records allegedly “forgot to renew her contract,” and the singer slowly faded into irrelevancy.
Ten years later, in September 2014, TMZ reported that Cantrell was sent to the hospital for a psych evaluation after witnesses claimed she was wandering around Santa Monica at 2 AM screaming about someone giving her a “poisonous gas.”
So what happened? How did someone destined to be the next biggest star fade into complete obscurity?
Some blame Jay Z and Beyoncé.
Jay Z allegedly dated Blu Cantrell briefly in 2001, around the same time Jay Z and Beyoncé reportedly started their relationship. Shar said she, along with many others, believe Jay Z named his daughter Blue Ivy after Blu Cantrell, not because he was still fond of her, but in a calculated effort with Beyoncé to erase Cantrell’s digital footprint off the internet completely. Anytime someone Googles “Blu” online their daughter “Blue Ivy” dominates the search results instead of the 2000s pop star.
“They were trying to get rid of her,” Shar claims.
Jaguar Wright, who was a backup singer for Jay Z in 2001, the same year he was allegedly romantically involved with both women, also blames the Carters for Cantrell’s downfall.
After a little sleuthing, I discovered that L.A. Reid appointed Jay Z president of Def Jam in 2004 (per Mariah Carey’s recommendation) the same year Reid allegedly “forgot” to renew Blu Cantrell’s contract.
Could this have been a direct result of Cantrell openly admitting her crush on Jay Z during a candid, 45-minute interview with Wendy Williams in 2003? In that loose-lipped conversation, the two freely gossiped about the Carters—an interview that many believe ultimately "ended Blu Cantrell for good.”
“Look out Beyoncé, Blu is in town,” Wendy warned Beyoncé, subtly fueling the rivalry that had been brewing between the two.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that Blu Cantrell even goes way back with Diddy, one time casually telling a reporter (unprovoked) that Diddy complimented how good she looked naked after seeing her nudes.
Shar’s voice notes continued getting juicer, so I invited her on for a late-night podcast episode to speculate the possibility of these industry love triangles. From Blu Cantrell to Aaliyah, from Mýa to Monica, we discussed all the talented singers from this era whom Shar believes were "intentionally sabotaged by the Carters to clear the way for Beyoncé’s success"—a theory that Jaguar Wright has been vocal about for years.
“Blu it’s time to talk. Jay Z worked very hard to erase you and me,” Wright said.
I expected this deep dive to be quick, but Blu Cantrell’s downfall story is far more intricate than I imagined, with a web of usual suspects hiding in plain sight- who may be responsible for orchestrating the destruction of hip-hop’s most vocal truth tellers.