Shawn ''Jay-Z'' Carter is in a great mood. And why shouldn't he be? He just got back from celebrating his 38th birthday in Paris; he recently had a chance to catch up on the collected cinematic works of Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow (''The guys that made Knocked Up, Superbad — those guys are really on fire right now!''); and best of all, he just found out last week that Def Jam, where he serves as president and CEO, raked in 26 Grammy nominations. Not bad for a dreary winter week. Of course, Jay does have some less fun things on his mind — like his contract negotiations at Def Jam, where his current term is about to expire. The multihyphenate gave EW.com a call to talk it all out.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So you guys got 26 Grammy nominations for Def Jam — 13 for Roc-A-Fella specifically. How are you feeling about that?
JAY-Z: I feel fantastic. I mean, it's consistent with what we've said, man. Everybody's complaining and talking about the quality of music in the business and everything like that. And I've always said, if you just make great music, it'll all figure itself out somehow, some way. Just make great music — let's just stay consistent with that. And these nominations, to me, are like a nod that it's true.

Tell me what you think this says for the specific artists involved. We could start with Kanye West, who's leading the whole pack with eight nominations.
That shows that he has the most passion out of everybody, of wanting to make the best music for only that reason. You know, it's a great thing for the music business, because people emulate that type of success. If you're gonna emulate Kanye, that means you have to put your heart and soul into the music.

Kanye's made it known in the past when he thinks awards committees don't recognize him properly. Do you think this number of nominations will be enough to satisfy him?
[Instantly] No. He's never, ever — and I hope he never gets satisfied. I think that's the steam that keeps his train running.

Rihanna got four nominations, Ne-Yo got five. As someone who's overseen those projects from start to finish, how do you feel about that?
You don't even understand how great I feel about that. Because that's something that was from the ground up. When we walked into the building [to run Def Jam in 2004], neither one of them had one album out. And it was a concerted effort to turn them both into superstars. I mean, I remember the conversations very vividly. So to see it all come to fruition in three years is just an amazing feeling.

Have you talked to them since hearing about the nominations?
Yeah, everyone's stoked. Rihanna's out of her mind. Everyone's just very excited.

NEXT PAGE: Jay-Z on his negotiations for a new Def Jam contract: ''It's not about money! I mean, you couldn't pay me enough. And I don't mean that in a cocky way.''

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