NEW YORK: From a display of Jay-Z lyrics on the facade of the Brooklyn Library to a concert of rap pioneers at Yankee Stadium, New York is celebrating 50 years of hip-hop, a genre born in its ghettos and now dominant around the world.
Inside the library, a vast exhibition retraces the career of one of Brooklyn’s most famous sons, charting his rise from “a street-smart hustler to a global revered music mogul.”
The artist born Shawn Carter has written about dealing drugs in the Marcy Houses housing project where he grew up, before becoming a billionaire rapper whose marriage to Beyonce created one of the most glamorous couples in pop culture.
“I’ve never really been to a lot of exhibitions,” said 31-year-old warehouse worker Jamarly Thomas, joking that he goes by “Jay-T.”
“So to witness something like this from my favorite rapper is pretty mind-blowing. For a lot of…
