Considering how many chart-topping albums he has had and the number of smash singles he has released, it's amazing to think that Jay-Z has never had a song top the Billboard Hot 100, the definitive pop songs chart. That changed this morning, as his "Empire State of Mind" took the top spot in its tenth week of release. The track, which of course features a memorable hook care of Alicia Keys, picked up a ton of radio airplay in the wake of the New York Yankees' World Series win (the team ended up adopting it as a victory anthem). Meanwhile, "Run This Town," the first single from The Blueprint 3, remains in the top 20.

While it does mark the first time Jigga has had one of his own songs at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, it's not the first time his name has been associated with the top spot. He has been a guest on three other number one tunes: Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker," Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" and Rihanna's "Umbrella." Keys is no stranger to the summit of the pop mountain either, as she has had two of her own songs hit the top spot ("Fallin'" and "No One") as well as another collaboration ("My Boo," with Usher).

Elsewhere on this week's Hot 100, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" jumped seven spots up the chart to #11, which suggests that it should bust into the top 10 the same week that her The Fame Monster gets its official release. Other big gainers included 50 Cent's "Baby by Me" and the version of "Defying Gravity" as performed by Chris Colfer and Lea Michele from "Glee."

On Thursday night (November 12), Jay-Z unleashed his Blueprint tour on the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. With the help of Wale and N.E.R.D., Jigga invaded Assembly Hall (home of the University of Illinois basketball team) and tore through hits both new ("Run This Town," "Empire State of Mind") and old ("99 Problems," "Big Pimpin'").

"Rising from below the stage, Jay-Z performed 'Run This Town' to open the show," wrote April Dahlquist in the Daily Illini. "In black pants, an Abraham Lincoln graphic tee, ice, a Yankees hat and 'sunnies,' 39-year-old Jay-Z was dressed to impress.

"And the Jay-Z song was on," she continued. "Whether the fans knew every word to the rap song, or just nodded their heads to the beat, from the constant screams and camera flashes, it was apparent the audience was enjoying themselves."

Jigga's comprehensive crawl across some of the country's biggest college campuses tonight at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The acclaimed Blueprint tour has brought out the road warrior in Jay-Z, who will keep arena-hopping until Thanksgiving. He'll then head back out on the road in February of next year for another 14 dates, culminating in what will likely be a triumphant tour closer at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

There's no doubt that Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3 is one of the best albums to hit the streets in 2009, and the singles "Run This Town" and "Empire State of Mind" have both become iconic entries in Jigga's long list of hits. Seven years ago, Jay was also working behind an entry in the Blueprint series. On November 12, 2002, he dropped The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse, a sprawling double album that represents the legendary Brooklyn MC at his most experimental. There are forays into rock (the Cake-sampling "Guns & Roses," which features guitar by Lenny Kravitz), flashy club pop (the Pharrell Williams-produced "Excuse Me Miss") and some of Timbaland's best latter-day productions (the jittery "The Bounce" and the flashy "2 Many Hoes"). It's a long and sometimes difficult album, but it's one of the more playful pieces of Jigga's catalog.

Oddly, The Blueprint 2 is sometimes remembered as a pure pop album (despite the fact that most of the second disc contains some real genre stretching stuff). It's possible that people are simply remembering it for it's two biggest singles: The aforementioned "Excuse Me Miss" and the Beyoncé-assisted "'03 Bonnie & Clyde." The latter is one of those larger-than-life Kanye West productions that has a bit, easy-going groove and a gigantic hook. Though it's excellent, it's easily one of the most radio-friendly tunes Jay-Z has ever put out. It has a delightfully playful video that casts Jay and Beyoncé as outlaws on the run from the police.

In her brief but already prolific career, Rihanna has collaborated with some of the biggest stars in the business, including Justin Timberlake (on "Rehab"), T.I. (the buoyant "Live Your Life") and Ne-Yo ("Hate That I Love You"). But her two biggest tag-team efforts have been with legendary rapper Jay-Z. The first time they crossed paths was in 2007 with "Umbrella," which was just voted the best song of the decade in a recent poll. More recently, she provided the hook for "Run This Town," Jigga's big comeback single and video that also featured Kanye West. Despite the star power in the room, Rihanna said that creating that incredible jam was nothing but fun.

"They're like my brothers," Rihanna told MTV News' Sway during their interview yesterday. "Especially Jay-Z. We're really close." The singer also told Sway that "working with him was effortless but really enjoyable, and every time we perform the song it's fun." She most recently enjoyed herself this past weekend, when she joined Jay-Z on stage in Los Angeles for a performance of "Run This Town."

But what about Rihanna's other brother, the somewhat reclusive Kanye West? "I actually haven't seen him in a while," she admitted. "But last time I saw him, he was good."

For more from Rihanna, including her thoughts on the aftermath of her interview with Diane Sawyer on last week's "20/20," the concept behind her new album Rated R and her touring plans for the coming year, check out the entire "Extended Play: Rihanna" now.

It's probably an obvious thing to say, but it's good to be Jay-Z. The rapper/business mogul/pop icon has spent the past few months putting out one of the best albums of his career in The Blueprint 3, embarked on a successful tour, did a duet with U2 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, starred in a pair of iconic videos ("Run This Town" and "Empire State of Mind") and helped the New York Yankees win the World Series (or at least helped to celebrate their victory). Just in the past few days, he performed at the Yankees' victory parade in downtown Manhattan, took in a Knicks game with a couple of players from the team (including Alex Rodriguez) and then flew out to California for more tour dates and a stop at Sunday night's Los Angeles Lakers game against the New Orleans Hornets.

And that is where the problems begin.

There's no questioning Jigga's Yankees fandom. The guy has supported the team, rapped about players and even wears a Yankees cap on the cover of Kingdom Come. It's safe to say that if the Mets got hot next year and made a run at the World Series (this is highly unlikely), it's doubtful he would jump ship and suddenly root for the boys from Flushing.

But where does Jay-Z's basketball fandom settle? Is he a Knicks fan (because he supports his hometown), a Cavaliers fan (because he's friends with LeBron James) or a Lakers fan (because everybody is down with Kobe Bryant)? And what about the New Jersey Nets, a team that counts Hova as one of its owners. It's possible that Jigga simply counts himself as a fan of the NBA, or that as a team owner he's simply doing due diligence. But that's something of a cop-out, and the poor Knicks are unloved enough.

While Spike Lee has been a reliable celebrity Knicks fan for years, they still don't have a definitive star supporter (the way that Jack Nicholson reps for the Lakers, for example). So I ask you: Who should step up as the official musician superfan of the New York Knicks? Should they give 50 Cent a season ticket in hopes he'll bring some energy to the floor? Should they get the members of Kiss in there to literally light a fire under David Lee's backside? Let us know in the comments.

Last night in the Bronx, the New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 7-3, successfully closing out the 2009 World Series and clinching the team's 27th championship, the most of any professional sports team in history. Last night's game belonged to veteran Yankee ace Andy Pettitte (who pitched solidly on short rest) and to World Series MVP Hideki Matsui, who tied a Series record with six RBI. The victory is not nearly as poetic as some are making it out to be (after all, the Yanks last won a Series in 2000 — hardly the drought that the Boston Red Sox experienced), but it's an especially redemptive win for team manager Joe Girardi (who has been second-guessed for most of his tenure) and for slugger Alex Rodriguez, whose monster salary has long been in question because of his inability to win a championship. But all that has been washed away by the thrill of victory.

Unfortunately, the Yankees' victory doesn't tidy up the problems that continue to plague baseball, most notably those involving performance-enhancing drugs. It's a game of poetry and numbers, an intersection of hard physics and cosmic luck that captivates scholars and blue-collars alike. But Major League Baseball — or any professional sports organization, for that matter — cannot continue to dance around the fact that the participants are not only cheating but also caught in a cycle of self-destruction. For all its brutality, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has rigorous drug testing for its athletes, and the top brass make no bones about docking pay or showing offenders the door. Anybody who argues for the purity of baseball is either naive or stupid (the spitball, corked bats and uppers have long been a core part of the game), but some of the greatest players of this generation (including the aforementioned Rodriguez) are tainted by the stink of steroids. Even if they're innocent, history will always cast a sideways glance at their accomplishments.

But those are issues for tomorrow. Today, the Yankees can pop the champagne and crank up the unofficial anthem of this championship run: Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind."

Every day a multitude of stars wanders through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.

Last week, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart made their way out of Canada after wrapping up the filming of "Eclipse," which made our neighbor to the north slightly less star-studded than it was while the third installment of the "Twilight" film series was still shooting. Still, Canada got a pretty good trade-off, as they lost the "Twilight" stars but picked up Jay-Z, who visited Toronto on Halloween. He stopped by MuchMusic (with J. Cole, Pharrell and Wale in tow) and then threw down at the Air Canada Centre that night for a concert. He's probably hoping his hometown Yankees wrap up the World Series tonight, because Jigga will be on his way to London for a show on Wednesday night.

Hova wasn't the only star with an international flair over the weekend, as Green Day played a giant show at the city's Wembley Stadium on Sunday and Robert Pattinson made a trip to Japan. Click here for these photos as well as the entire "Spotted!" archive, which includes over 350 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, U2, Janet Jackson and Adam Lambert!

As the week comes to a close here in the MTV Newsroom, we're left with a handful of questions before we slide out the door and into the weekend. Is it too late to start training for the New York Marathon? (Answer: Yes, as it's Sunday.) Is this weekend when we roll the clocks back? (Yes, so enjoy an extra hour of sleep before running the marathon.) What's going to be the most popular costume for Halloween? (We've already seen more Sookie Stackhouses than we care to count.) But most importantly: What might you have missed this week here on the Newsroom blog? Lucky for you,
we have whole cornucopia of answers ready and waiting for your clicking pleasure.

» The World Series kicked off this week, with the Phillies and the Yankees each taking a game in the Bronx. We still think the Yankees have the better playlist, but the Phils do have the power of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck."

» "Michael Jackson's This Is It" premiered this week, and Adam Lambert and Paula Abdul celebrated at MTV's red carpet premiere.

» Speaking of Lambert, he revealed the cover for his album For Your Entertainment this week, which caused Jim Cantiello to go a little bit insane and insert himself into some crazy "American Idol" album covers.

» The next day, the craziness continued.

» And obviously, with any good bout of madness, there are always outtakes and deleted scenes.

» Speaking of album covers, Rihanna unveiled hers as well. The people weighed in, but what do you think?

» Justin Bieber dropped a new single this week, and it really made us want to put on a sweater.
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By Jayson Rodriguez

Last night, deep inside the bowels of the new Yankee Stadium, Shaheem Reid and I found ourselves given free rein to roam pretty much anywhere we wanted to in the Bronx venue. During game two. Of the World Series.

Now, we've both been backstage at some major concerts before. Or inside recording studios when hits were being created.

But this experience was entirely different.

Two music journalists who are big (big!) sports fans with the opportunity to masquerade as baseball writers with credentials to go just about anywhere we wanted. Only the guys in the Phillies and Yankees uniforms had more access than us. (And maybe that Jay-Z fellow who performed last night before the game.)

When we walked into the stadium we were overwhelmed by the amount of people, cheers and general pandemonium that ensues during a game of this caliber.

We quickly found a staircase and traveled down to the field level and unexpectedly ran into Swizz Beatz, who told us Jay-Z and Alicia Keys were about to head onto the field. We hurried along with him and soon spotted Jay-Z's camp. The second Swizz yelled out, "There goes Jay!" it seemed like we stumbled onto the stage like Lil Mama to witness something epic.

Jay-Z was standing behind the left field wall, which slowly opened up to let him out onto the field like he was Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

The view we had was just like the beginning shot of his performance at the VMAs last month: A panoramic shot from behind as Jay-Z walked into the stadium with 50,000 pumped-up Yankee fans going crazy.

We swung around and walked through a back door that delivered us right into the Phillies' bullpen, where we could see Pedro Martinez warming up. Soon, Shaheem, myself, and Jay's team were walking along the warning track to get a closer view of the proceedings. Read more...

"There was a first phone call, and Jay hit me up like, 'I feel like I have this record that's going to be the anthem of New York.' He's like, 'The piano, the way the style [is], the whole flow, and it couldn't be the anthem of New York without you.' Obviously, I'm very grateful to him for reaching out to me and for that type of ability to represent my hometown, like, that was crazy. So we went to the studio. I went to the studio, and ... I fell in love from the jump."

-Alicia Keys, talking about how "Empire State of Mind," her collaboration with Jay-Z, got started. The song, which the duo will perform before tonight's World Series game in Yankees Stadium, took a bit of time to create, but that was because Keys knew that she had to nail it perfectly. "I did try it a couple of times, but it was more about capturing the kind of grand feeling of it," she explained to MTV News correspondent Tim Kash. "With the way I sang it the first time, I was actually kind of sick, and I knew that he needed the record, so I was like, 'Let me get to it.'" Keys' own new album The Element of Freedom will be released on December 15.