Jay-Z Announces Farewell Performance
By Luis Perez
Staff Writer
Posted September 24 2003, 2:28 PM EDT
First comes the Jay-Z concert. Then the album will follow, then the sneaker, then the book.
Just say "Black." Got it?
Jay-Z said as much yesterday in announcing his farewell performance at Madison Square Garden Nov. 25.
The event will trail what organizers billed as Jay-Z's "triple threat" of releases.
Jay-Z's final solo release, "The Black Album," the tenth album for the Roc-A-Fella rapper, and sneaker - the black version of his Reebok sneaker, "S. Carter" - hit stores on - you guessed it - "black" Friday, Nov. 28.
The Brooklyn-born rapper's autobiography, "The Black Book," debuts in early 2004.
"It's magical," said Jay-Z at a news conference in the Garden yesterday, flanked by Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network.
"I consider this my victory lap," said Jay-Z, who also said his retirement will mean a smaller presence within Hip-Hop - just singles. "We're calling this 'From "Marcy to Madison Square.' "
The book will unveil "just my process" going from Brooklyn's Marcy projects to his 1996 debut, said the rapper.
Simmons and Chavis said all proceeds of the concert, which follows Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life" and "Rock the Mic" tours this summer, will go to the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, which serves high school students.
Simmons, founder of the Hip Hop Summit, said the centerpiece of the event will be voter registration. Organizers also said the concert will be peaceful - dispelling notions that rap is a vehicle of violence.
Asked by a Norwegian journalist to comment on the "so-called rap war," Simmons responded:
"Our war that the rappers are fighting is ignorance and poverty. . . That's probably the most important war."
Jay-Z predicted films in his future - as an actor, director, producer and writer - but offered no details.
Asked about other performers at the Nov. 25 concert, Jay-Z said: "It's surprise guest stars."
Added Simmons: "We're gonna fill the Garden."
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