Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch got a bit of a facelift this week, honoring one of its most celebrated hometown heroes. Simulating a newspaper article, the new entrance of the building, which is still under construction, now dons multiple different lyrical excerpts from classic Jay-Z songs.
Videos by American Songwriter
For clarification, the library’s new makeover came in preparation for Thursday (July 13), the day the building was set to be temporarily shut down to set up for a “special event,” according to New York-based publication Hell Gate. While the BPL has not put in writing that the display is specifically meant for Jay-Z, though, Billboard has reported that it will indeed be made for Hov in some capacity.
What lends more credence to Billboard‘s report is the fact that Brooklyn Public Library jotted down the lyrics of Jay-Z hits like “Hovi Baby,” “Sweet,” “Encore,” “Justify My Thug,” “Smile,” and more on the walls of their establishment. Check out the video a fan took of the building below.
Last June, the library hosted an event named Night in the Library: The Philosophy of Hip-Hop. There, Jay-Z’s mother Dr. Gloria Carter served as a guest speaker, as she spoke about how curious her son was as a youth in New York.
“He was a very special child,” she said. “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, ‘OK, I’m a let you go outside.’ “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.”
Currently, as Brooklyn natives wait and see what their library has in store for Jay-Z, he was busy on the road with his wife Beyoncé for her Renaissance Tour. In fact, a video from her show Monday (July 10) went viral, as Hov hilariously mistook a fan’s request for a high-five, instead handing him his beverage. Watch the clip below.
Photo by Kevin Kane/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
