JAY-Z‘s lyrics have been spotted plastered across the front of the Brooklyn Public Library in celebration of an exhibit dedicated to Hov that’s said to be opening later this week.
Footage of the public library in Jay’s hometown receiving a makeover surfaced earlier this week as lyrics from tracks out of the rap deity’s decorated catalog like “Hovi Baby,” “Sweet,” “Encore,” “Justify My Thug,” “Smile” and more were seen inscribed on the BPL building in the style of a newspaper article.
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According to Hell Gate, the Brooklyn Public Library will be closed on Thursday (July 13) as it prepares to open the aforementioned JAY-Z exhibit to the public the following day on Friday (July 14).
The exhibit will reportedly be a “personal shrine to JAY-Z himself” and the installation will come equipped with a remake of the famous Baseline Studios, which was the recording studio co-owned by Jigga and Juan Perez.
JAY-Z’s lyrics plastered all over the front of Brooklyn public library https://t.co/52WCdDsvQrpic.twitter.com/nciqSci2H0
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) July 12, 2023
JAY-Z’s lyrics have often been recognized as a standard of excellence in the genre and they were used heavily as part of his 2010 autobiography, Decoded.
In celebration of Hip Hop 50, the Brooklyn Public Library hosted a Night in the Library: The Philosophy of Hip Hop event last month, which featured guest speakers such as Jay’s mother, Dr. Gloria Carter, as well as Rapsody and others.
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“He was a very special child. He was that kid that was like, ‘Yo ma, the sun is shining and I want to go outside.’ I’ll be like, ‘Baby, it’s cold out.’ He’d be like, ‘The sun is shining.’ I’d be like, ‘Okay, I’ma let you go outside,'” Gloria Carter told host Angie Martinez at the event.
“Open the door put him outside and I’m looking out the door and a couple minutes he’s ringing the bell [shivering]. So I was like, ‘What happened?’ He was like, ‘It’s cold outside.’ That’s how a lesson is learned.”
Hon. Dr. Gloria Carter tells @angiemartinez a story about her son at #NightInTheLibrary 🎤@RocNation@teamroc@ShawnCarterSF@BKLYNlibrary#hiphop50pic.twitter.com/WKCJdu9bst
— BPL Presents (@BPL_Presents) July 11, 2023
Meanwhile, Lil Wayne revealed earlier this week that he threw away his pen and paper once he learned that JAY-Z recorded his bars off the top.
“Like Biggie, love Biggie, love Jadakiss — I love all that shit, but Jay. The moment I heard it I stopped. You could ask my boy. ‘I heard that n-gga JAY-Z don’t write no more.’ We went in the studio and we did ‘10,000 Bars’ and that was the last time I rapped anything off of a paper,” Weezy told The Pivot Podcast.
Last month, Wayne recalled a time that Birdman chewed him out for allegedly trying to sound like JAY-Z when he was rapping.
“When you find a favorite artist, you’re going to start sounding like them,” he told Rolling Stone. “It took Birdman and them to pull my ass aside and be like, ‘Bro, I’m tired of every song you doing sounding like damn JAY-Z. You’re not JAY-Z.’”
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Jay and Lil Wayne have long had a competitive relationship while collaborating on tracks like DJ Khaled’s “GOD DID,” Tha Carter III‘s “Mr. Carter,” “Hello Brooklyn 2.0,” and “Swagga Like Us.”
