Picasso Baby Trailer [VIDEO]: Jay Z Performance Art Film to Air on HBO August 2 [WATCH]
The video for Jay-Z's Picasso Baby will air on Friday, Aug. 2, at 11 p.m. on HBO, and a preview for the performance art film has been released.
The video will comprise of footage from the rapper's July 10 marathon performance of the song at the Pace Gallery in Manhattan, New York City. The rapper performed Picasso Baby, which is off his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail, for close to six hours at the event. The epic Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film will be the first music video-if you can even call it that-for a song from the rapper's new album. In the trailer, Jay Z is joined by Alan Cumming, Judd Apatow, and the artist Marina Abramovic. Abramović is the most famous contemporary performance artist.
"Rap is thinking out loud and you're putting your fears and your vulnerabilities and your insecurities to music," Jay Z says in the trailer for his HBO special. "Concerts are pretty much performance art. In a smaller venue it's a bit more intimate so your feel the energy of the people."
VIBE magazine's editor Datwon Thomas helped film the event he called "one of the best artist/fan interactive experiences ever."
"Feeling the energy from the people, Jay preceded to interact with everyone in attendance as he floated around the area, bringing his face inches away from his fans -- he even kissed one woman on the cheek as he rapped," Thomas said.
"Grabbing shoulders, shaking hands, play-fighting, Diddy bopping, performing Kid-N-Play's famous kick step dance with a gentleman that forgot to do the spin part at the end (which Jay had to show him), was all part of Jay-Z's fun-loving act in every scene. The most notable aspect of the exhibition is that the as-yet-unreleased video already exists in countless Vines and Instagram video snippets, each in perspectives that varied from guest to guest. In essence, it was a real-time music video."
