Remember that time Jay Z rapped his track "Picasso Baby" at a New York art gallery for six hours straight? Well, that was for a reason.
Yes, Hova contributed some epic performance art and became yet another musician to go out-of-the-box when it came to marketing, but the motive behind the stunt was to ultimately make a short film and music video hybrid.
Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film debuted on HBO on Friday (but no worries if you missed it—just watch the video up top!).
"The truth is, as far as hip-hop and arts, we were like cousins," Jay Z said during an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher before the broadcast.
"If you think about those days when Fab Five Freddy was with Madonna and Basquiat and everything. We all went to those clubs, that's when hip-hop was more underground. The arts and hip-hop really partied together. But when art started becoming part of the gallery, it was this separation. But we pretty much came up together."
The nearly 11-minute long, Mark Romanek-directed video centers around the rapper's marathon performance, which shows Jay's interactions with local guests and celebs, including Marina Abramović, Judd Apatow, Fab Five Freddy, Cynthia Rowley, Wale, Michael K. Williams, Adam Driver, Dustin Yellin and actual Picasso baby Diana Widmaier Picasso.
No word on whether Jay finally got a Picasso of his own.
