A Star-Studded Night with Jay-Z at the Brooklyn Public Library

On Thursday afternoon, I received an email labeled Top Secret that instructed me to arrive at 6 p.m. sharp in front of the Brooklyn Public Library overlooking Grand Army Plaza. The doors to the library would open for a half hour and supposedly close forever. Or so I was told. The hush-hush and tight security were for an event that was quickly becoming front page news: a glitzy grand opening party for The Book of Hov, an expansive free exhibition honoring Jay Z, curated by his art advisor Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and in collaboration with Roc Nation, the entertainment company Jay Z founded.

News about the exhibit had begun to travel earlier this week when the dramatic facade of the Central Library was wrapped in lyrics from Jay Z bangers like Hovi Baby, So Ambitious, and Dirt Off Your Shoulder. A cube covered in LED screens was installed in the library’s plaza, black until the night of the reception, when it flashed scenes from Jay Z’s music videos. By Wednesday, local news outlet Hellgate had the scoop. Top Secret, indeed.

As I waited to make my way in, obviously wealthy, connected, or famous guest-listers streamed towards the library’s entrance, only to be told by event coordinators they couldn’t enter due to a delay. Someone special was struck in traffic. The silk shirts were growing dark with sweat from the sweltering July heat. A band  –apparently orchestrated by Jay Z’s engineer Guru– played a jazz medley of the hip-hop star’s hits. Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered beyond the barricades to catch a glimpse of the man of the hour or, better yet, his wife. Instead, they watched amused as the Very Important People were rejected at the library entrance. I asked a woman, wearing checkered black and white sunglasses who was waiting at the barricades with her husband and child, how they knew to stop by.

“Well, those are his lyrics on the walls, so we figured,” she said. 

Finally, the event planners shuffled us into line and began checking people in, clutching mugshots (of who?) in their hands. A line of Escalades disgorged VIPs into fake hedges and black-suited handlers. I, and a few other lost souls were stuck, told we were not on the guest list. Then Greenberg Rohatyn appeared –clad in her customary plum lipstick, straightened hair, teeny white crop top, and pale, high waisted, wide-legged jeans– and ushered us in.

Greenberg Rohatyn has served as Jay Z’s art advisor for close to a decade, having helped orchestrate Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film (2014), a music video for his album Magna Carta … Holy Grail that saw Jay Z perform at Pace Gallery in front of a small crowd. The film was a direct reference to Marina Abramović’s The Artist Is Present (2010); attendees were invited to sit before him as he rapped, a one-on-one experience with the greatest alive.

With Greenberg Rohatyn leading us, the golden glow of the BPL’s doors beckoned. We went inside. The hunt has begun for a glimpse of Jay Z. He was everywhere. 

A giant LED pillar projected out of the atrium, displaying Derrick Adam’s digital portrait of Jay Z, Heir to the Throne (2021), later sold as an NFT in 2021. Elsewhere, Jay Z’s face floated suspended on album covers contained in glass cases. In another case, a reproduction of Henry Taylor’s 2017 portrait of Jay Z made for a T: The New York Times Style Magazine cover. Daniel Arsham’s Hov’s Hands (2023), a cast of Jay Z’s arms and hands making the diamond triangle hand sign —“throwing up the Roc,” as it’s known. He was even present in the libations: servers carried silver trays of Old Fashioneds made with D’Ussé cognac and flutes of Armand de Brignac champagne, both Jay Z-owned brands. I took an Old Fashioned, swirled with a golden viscous glitter that seemed inedible. But who was I to turn up my nose at free cocktails?

I looked around. Hip-hop super-producer and social media icon DJ Khaled descended an elevator looking at his phone. Uncut Gems co-director Josh Safdie laughed in a circle of other laughing people. Mayor Eric Adams was supposedly around, but I didn’t see the famously spotlight-seeking politician. 

Among the other stars supposedly in attendance: basketball superstar Jayson Tatum, retired New York Yankee and Met Robinson Cano, the musicians Lil Uzi Vert and Questlove, and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin.

I went to look at the exhibition, 40,000-square feet of artworks, music, memorabilia, and other larger-scale installations organized into eight chapters that “brings to life a different aspect of Jay Z’s journey.” There’s “Business” on his entrepreneurship, “Win-Win” on his charitable endeavors, and then more unexpected ones like “So Fly,”  which fills the children’s library with paper planes designed by over 600 Brooklyn youth. A library conference room was transformed into “A Work Of Art Already” featuring a recreation of Baseline Studios, the historic long-time recording studio of Jay Z and Roc-A-Fella Records. Screens played clips from his Black Album era. The Young Adult section was filled with replicas of the rapper’s many awards, signed footballs, and cases of festival passes and news clippings. Another library stack area was transformed into a white-washed gallery featuring reams of film from his early music videos, as well as cassette tapes, framed platinum records, and framed platinum CDs. 

Jay Z’s life, it seems, is one of mediums, an archive of ever-evolving technologies. There are record players loaded up and free to use. Either I don’t know how to use these things or they’re broken, because they only produce one scratching, whining note.

I noticed that the library had gone quiet. Around the corner, the library’s record room had been transformed into “Did It Without A Pen,” an arrangement of 400 books referenced by Jay-Z, as well as vinyls for songs sampled by Jay Z’s producers. A few people hold drinks quietly, as a clump of paparazzi snapped and fired flashes a few feet away. It was Jay Z, talking with singer Alicia Keys. His daughter Blue Ivy was there, sporting brown-tinted, frameless sunglasses right out of one of Beyonce’s Y2K-era outfits. There was no shock of seeing the celebrity in person. They looked exactly as they do in the thousands of photographs and videos of them I’ve seen before now. They translated perfectly. Only Blue Ivy was a shock, her face a perfect blend of her impossibly famous parents.

After a few moments, Jay Z indicated he wanted to leave, but they couldn’t. I overheard security usher them deeper into the library and telling them to wait until another exit could be accessed. Jay Z and his family and friends must spend their whole lives in careful coordination like this, and, in that way, seemed not powerful at all but, rather, vulnerable.

I went my own way, and discovered why the room was so quiet and calm. Guards were stationed at the entrance to the room. Outside, people jostled, frustrated and waiting for their own glimpse of the person they know is inside. As I left the library, the band was packing up. There, across Eastern Parkway, I saw the crowds, more people waiting in the dark.