"Young Forever" is the fifth single by American hip hop rapper Jay-Z from his album The Blueprint 3 off the Roc Nation label. The song was produced by Kanye West. It is a rework of Alphaville's 1984 song "Forever Young": the original melody is retained, British singer Mr. Hudson sings the original lyrics, and Jay-Z raps during the following verses in place of the original song's additional verses. It was released as the third official single in the United Kingdom. In that country, the song was originally scheduled to be released on the same day as Mr. Hudson's other collaboration with N-Dubz, "Playing with Fire", but the single was pushed back until January 25, 2010. The song has been performed several times by Jay-Z accompanied by his wife, R&B singer Beyoncé in place of Mr. Hudson, such as at the 2010 Coachella festival where Jay-Z was a headline act. Jay-Z brought out Beyoncé as a surprise guest and performed the closing song of the night. The couple also performed the song on New Year's Eve in 2010 at a concert at the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan Hotel.
Background
"Young Forever" was first released in the UK on January 11, 2010. It was later serviced to Rhythm/Crossover and Top 40/Mainstream radio stations in the United States on January 26 and February 23, 2010 respectively.
Chart performance
After strong coverage on the radio throughout December 2009 and January 2010, "Young Forever" began to receive increasing digital downloads. Following the release of the album, the song debuted at number 75 on the 'Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 41 due to strong digital downloads the following week. Following its release as a single, the song re-entered the 'Billboard Hot 100 at number 97 and went on to peak at number 10, giving Jay-Z his 17th top ten single, reaching a new record previously shared with Ludacris as the rapper with the most Top 10 hits. In the United Kingdom, the single entered at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart. The next week, "Young Forever" climbed eight places to number 19. A few weeks later, the song peaked at number ten 10 on the chart. In Ireland, the single entered at number 36 the Irish Singles Chart. A week later, "Young Forever" climbed five places in the chart to number 31. The single later climbed to its peak of #14. The song was the world's 19th most digitally sold song of the first half of 2010 with over 1,606,000 units sold, as of July 2010 it has sold 2,050,000 copies. "Young Forever" was certified platinum in May 2012 by the Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. In 2014, following the performance of the song at the last two concerts in Paris, France, on September 13 during the On the Run Tour, the song managed to debut on the French Singles Chart the following week at the position of 168.
Music video
The music video was released on December 22, 2009 on Jay-Z's official YouTube channel. Directed by Anthony Mandler, the video is in black-and-white and shows various aspects of youth across America, intercut with scenes of Jay-Z and Mr. Hudson performing the song, sometimes in concert. Singer Rita Ora makes a cameo appearance in the video. Concert scenes were filmed at Alexandra Palace, London on November 4, 2009. The video is produced by Andrew Listermann of Riveting Entertainment.
