Jay Z's missing hyphen? It's been gone for two years

This is what happens when newspapers cut back on copy editors.

Rapper Jay Z, formerly the rapper known as Jay-Z, dropped the hyphen from his moniker two years ago — and nobody noticed until Wednesday night.

That's when Billboard editor Joe Levy tweeted, as if it were breaking news, "Jay Z has dropped the hyphen from his name, according to his label. I am not kidding. (Wish I was.)"

But while Shawn Carter used the hyphenated version of his stage name on his 2009 album The Blueprint 3 and his 2010 memoir Decoded, the hyphen was gone on Watch the Throne, his 2011 album with Kanye West.

And it's nowhere to be found on the chart-topping Magna Carta Holy Grail — unless that big black bar obscuring part of the rapper's name on the cover is actually a REALLY BIG HYPHEN.

Somewhere Prince and P Diddy are harrumphing and wondering what the big deal is.