JAY-Z is doing his part to help small business owners in real time, copping a young artist’s paintings of Beyoncé after seeing them on the news.
Artist Lauryn Michele appeared on NBC News on Saturday (July 28), showing off the canvases she brought with her to see Bey on night one of her two-night Renaissance tour stint at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. After catching the segment, Hov invited her back the next night – and is now the proud owner of not one but three beautiful paintings of his wife.
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“POV: you were on the news and Jay-Z bought your paintings,” Lauryn wrote with a TikTok video of the experience on Monday (July 31).
The clip shows her recording her news segment in the parking lot of MetLife, then watching it that night and ending with presenting JAY-Z with the paintings the following day.
Check out the video below:
The purchase arrives just after JAY-Z helped a fledgling soul food restaurant in Chicago get a sweet business boost.
According to CBS News Chicago, Hov got a hankering for some short ribs and pound cake last weekend when his wife, Beyoncé, was in town performing. He’d heard about the Bronzeville Soul restaurant via word of mouth and decided to stop by, leaving owner Mario Coleman in a state of disbelief.
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“I couldn’t believe it was him. Actually, when I first saw him, I didn’t think it was him. I thought it was someone else acting like JAY-Z,” he said.
JAY-Z apparently enjoyed the meal, and enjoyed it even more when he found out that Bronzeville Soul was Black-owned, so he gave the restaurant his personal seal of endorsement.
“His actual words to me was once he looked us up and saw it was a Black business, he did tell me he wanted to support Black businesses, and he said, that’s why I’m here,” Coleman said. “He said the food is good.”
As a result of Jigga’s visit, the restaurant reported that it had received a nice boost in business — which the business was apparently in need of after a tough “up and down” year.
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“We went through a lot of changes, but it all turned out good for everybody,” Coleman said. “We’re happy. We want it to be better, of course, but we are happy it’s not killing us to the point where we thinking like, ‘We ain’t gonna make it,’ Coleman said, according to Block Chicago Club.
