Jay Z debuts “Picasso Baby” on HBO [video]

Hip-Hop has always been a medium that thrived upon its ability to tap into new areas and highlight areas outside the mainstream. As its popularity grew and hip-hop became apart of the dominant culture, some felt it lost a bit of the creativity that made it special. Enter rapper/agent and all-around-business MAN Jay Z to change the game again.

In 2003 jay told his fans to “Change Clothes” and they did, losing the 3X tees and super baggy pants for the more sartorial look of button ups and Purple labels. But in 2013 he aims to elevate hip-hop as an art with the first video from his “Magna Carta Holy Grail” album. From the release of the album via Samsung devices to the first video, which fuses art and hip-hop in a manner that hasn’t been seen since the 90’s, check out the performance art video for “Picasso Baby.”

Even the premiere of the video was unique. It was launched Friday night on HBO during Jay’s appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Jay also sat in on the panel and didn’t back down from participating in the discussion with softball answers:

“I don’t really want to scare America, but the real problem is there’s no middle class. So the gap between the haves and have nots is getting wider and wider,” JAY explained. “It’s gonna be a problem that no amount of police can solve, because once you have that sort of oppression and that gap is widened, it’s inevitable that something’s going to happen.”