A few weeks ago, Jay Z made news because of a video shoot at New York’s Pace Gallery for his new song, ‘Picasso Baby.’ The video concept was inspired by Marina Abramovic’s 2010 art campaign where people lined up to sit across from the well-known artist during business hours. Jay Z’s take on that concept was to rap ‘Picasso Baby’ to an intimate audience for six straight hours.
Now following in Abramovic’s footsteps, who made an HBO documentary out of the campaign, Jay Z’s ‘Picasso Baby’ will debut on HBO on August 2nd. According to an HBO trailer, the video will air at 11 pm following Jay Z’s appearance on the popular political talk show “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
‘Picasso Baby’ will be the first music video from Jay Z’s new album “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” and based on this HBO announcement, it appears that he will continue to create new rules on releasing albums. Until now, the only promotion for the album has been some concept videos and really revealing interviews.
Recently, ‘Hov’ has been obsessed with the art world. He’s become an avid collector and he’s a staunch admirer of artists like Basquiat and Shakespeare. In his recent interviews, he even speaks about how he views himself as modern-day versions of these artists. Now this ‘Picasso Baby’ video seems to be a culmination of Jay Z’s recent interpretation of art.
In the trailer featured above, Jay states “a concert is pretty much a performance art.” And we look forward to seeing that performance. Check out the video and give your thoughts.
