Jay-Z's Rare Paris Performance to Celebrate Art Icons Basquiat and Warhol

Rap mogul Jay-Z will return to the stage this week for a rare live performance. On Tuesday, his label, Roc Nation, announced that he would perform at the Louis Vuitton Foundation's Auditorium in Paris on Friday to celebrate the cultural impact of two of the most influential artists of the 20th century: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.

Basquiat was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent who rose to fame in the 1980s as a neo-expressionist painter and graffiti artist. His works are known for their intense colors, bold brushstrokes and incorporation of symbols and text.

🇬🇧🎤JAY-Z - Celebration concert

To coincide with the #BasquiatWarhol exhibition at the Fondation, JAY-Z will give a concert to pay tribute to Warhol and Basquiat, on Friday 14 April 2023 at 9pm, in the Fondation’s Auditorium.

🎫Tickets on sale : https://t.co/Icp8NcO0zn pic.twitter.com/3p2gPwxjF2

— Roc Nation (@RocNation) April 12, 2023

Warhol, on the other hand, was an American artist, filmmaker and pioneer of the Pop Art movement, best known for his vividly colored silkscreen prints of celebrities, everyday objects and iconic American symbols such as the Campbell's soup can.

The "Basquiat x Warhol. Painting Four Hands" exhibition, which the concert will coincide with, features the two artists' 160 canvas collaborations, showcasing the distinctive styles of both artists and highlighting the artistic dialogue between them.

The event, dubbed the "JAY-Z Celebration Concert," is sponsored by Tiffany & Co. and marks a rare occurrence for Jay-Z, who hasn't been on an official tour since his $44-billion grossing 4:44 Tour in 2017. He was last seen on stage rapping his "God Did" verse at the 2023 Grammy Awards, something he said he did out of respect for hip-hop culture.

"I thought about it, I was in my head, and I just broke down and said, 'You know, it's a four-minute verse.' Again, for the culture, for hip-hop, we gotta do that," he told TIDAL.

Jay-Z's love for Basquiat and Warhol has been evident in his music for decades. In his 2008 song "Ain't I," he rapped, "I got Warhols on my hall's walls, I got Basquiats in the lobby of my spot/I'm so sophisticatedly hood, S. Carter cashmere premium goods." In his 2011 song "Illest Motherf*cker Alive," he rapped, "Basquiat, Warhols serving as my muses/My house like a museum, so I see 'em when I'm peeing, usually, you have this much taste, you European."

Beyoncé wearing the iconic Tiffany Stone alongside Jay Z & a never-before-seen painting by Basquiat. Jean-Michel Basquiat was regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He dies at 27 of an overdose. Jeffery Wright portrays him in “Basquiat.” pic.twitter.com/pj4US32zqV

— Loni Love (@LoniLove) August 23, 2021

It's worth noting that the concert will also be supported by Tiffany & Co., with which both Jay-Z and his wife Beyoncé have brand deals. Although Basquiat's estate has spoken out against his work being featured in Jay-Z and Beyoncé's Tiffany & Co campaign, Jay-Z emphasizes that he is solely a fan of the artist.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z Star in New Tiffany’s Campaign

 

Photograph by Mason Poole. Courtesy of Tiffany & Co.

Black is beautiful, and American jewelry powerhouse Tiffany & Co. revealed Monday that it is betting big that it can revitalize the luxury brand and help it expand to new frontiers of cultural impact and profit.

A year after being purchased by Paris-based LVMH, the 183-year-old company — under the direction of the 29-year-old son of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, Alexandre, who is the executive vice president of product and communications at Tiffany’s — announced that Beyoncé and Jay-Z will be the stars of its latest campaign “ABOUT LOVE.”

"Beyoncé and JAY-Z are the epitomai of the modern love story,” Arnault said of the decision to make the black billionaire couple the anchor for its new creative push, reportedly the result of close collaboration and a shared vision between both the Carters and Tiffany & Co. 

As a brand that has always stood for love, strength and self-expression, we could not think of a more iconic couple that better represents Tiffany's values. We are honored to have the Carters as a part of the Tiffany family.

Tiffany & Co. brings out all the stops in the first images from the campaign. Sharing the stage for the first time in an ad, the couple quoted in a statement from the brand as saying, "Love is the diamond that the jewelry and art decorate," are framed by a painting by another black cultural icon — Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Equals Pi, painted in 1982 and never seen before in public.

Jay-Z, a huge Basquiat fan, rocks a hairdo reminiscent of the artist's own famous locks while the famous couple dons some of the jewelry company’s most famous pieces. Most notably Beyoncé becomes just the fourth woman, and the first black woman, to wear the 128-carat Tiffany Diamond, made famous by Audrey Hepburn who wore it in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

It’s a bold statement for a company that started at a time when many of those with the hue of its ambassadors were legally enslaved and has sought to appeal to a wealthy, mostly white clientele over the ensuing decades.

It’s a new world; however, Tiffany’s says that the “ABOUT LOVE" campaign “reflects its continued support of underrepresented communities,” and as a part of the house's partnership with the Carters has pledged $2 million towards scholarship and internship programs for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Whether or not the effort becomes the game-changer it aspires to be remains to be seen. For now, however, it has both fans and critics of the move buzzing and that may be worth the steep price of admission into a whole new world of luxury advertising. 

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LeBron James Joins Three Comma Club

LeBron James has definitely proven he is the NBA GOAT, when it comes to earnings while active as a player.

The superstar just became the first player to earn billionaire status while still chasing championships. 

Per Sportico reporter Kurt Badenhausen, James's $330 million earned in player salary since 2003 and $700 million dollars in endorsements — including high-dollar deals with AT&T, Nike, Beats, Blaze Pizza, GMC, PepsiCo, Rimowa and Walmart — put him firmly in the Three Comma Club.

It's a clear win for James against league icon Michael Jordan, with whom he is often compared to and debated about by fans for his actions on and off the court. 

It took Jordan, even with perhaps the most lucrative shoe deal in history, years after his playing career to amass his billion-dollar fortune.

This is just the latest win for James, who led the Los Angeles Lakers back to the championships in 2020 after a long drought and most recently his update of Jordan's seminal acting turn, "Space Jam: A New Legacy," taking first place this past weekend at the box office with $32 million in ticket sales.

Don't Call It A Comeback; Red-Hot Vinyl Market Proves Medium Is Here To Stay

Don't toss those turntables yet Super Throwback fans! One thing we know is our readers love music and real music aficionados have always had a place in their hearts for vinyl — whether it's

 for the so called "warm sound" of pressed records or the fact that it is the only lossless recording medium.

We can't count the hours spent arguing which medium is superior since CDs and finally digital recordings took over the majority of the market. The correct answer of course is vinyl, and 2021 is giving us a little hope that the much-maligned grandfather of the music market isn't on its last legs.

Analytics firm MRC Data, which specializes in collecting data from the entertainment and music industries, recently reported that in the first six months of 2021, 19.2 million vinyl albums were sold compared to sales of just 18.9 million for CDs. It continues a trend that began during 2020 when revenue from vinyl sales eclipsed that of CDs for the first time in 34 years. Overall vinyl sales were up 9.2 million over the same period in 2020, led by Taylor Swift's "Evermore," which moved 100,000 units to set a record for most vinyl copies ever sold in a week during its December 2020 release.

Other artists profiting from the vinyl renaissance include Harry Styles ("Fine Line"), Kendrick Lamar ("Good Kid M.A.A.D. City") and Billy Eilish ("When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?"), whose efforts join Swift's at the top of the vinyl charts at the midyear point. 

Klassic Joints: 8 Hip-Hop Songs About Police Brutality [VIDEOS]

When hip-hop emerged as a major musical and cultural force, it also came with outspoken artists who weren’t afraid to speak their minds about societal problems.

Police brutality and misconduct has always been an issue, especially for inner-city youths and minorities, and hip-hop became one of the major vehicles to express outrage.

Watch 8 of the best hip-hop tracks dealing with racial profiling by police, racist cops, and more.

1. F*ck The Police - N.W.A.

2. Crooked Officer - Geto Boys

3. Sound of the Police - KRS-One

4. 99 Problems - Jay Z

5. Trapped - 2Pac


6. Illegal Search - LL Cool J


7. Cop Killer - Ice T

8. Don't Die - Killer Mike

Are there any songs we missed on the list? Comment below!