Jay-Z paid tribute to Nipsey Hussle during his “B-Sides 2″ concert Friday night at Webster Hall in New York City.
The hip-hop mogul, who was close friends with Hussle, performed a freestyle rap criticizing gentrification in honor of the slain rapper, activist and entrepreneur.
In the song, posted on Instagram by BET, Jay-Z delivered the verse: “Gentrify your own hood before these people do it/ Claim eminent domain and have your people move in/ That’s a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing/ For anybody still confused as to what he was doing.”
“The neighborhood designed to keep us trapped/ They redline us so property declines if you by blacks/ They depress the asset and take the property back/ It’s a ruthless but ingenious plan in fact/ So now we fighting over scraps/ crabs in the barrel but crabs don’t belong in the barrel/ But they ain’t never tell us that,” he continued.
Hussle was fatally shot outside his Marathon Clothing store in South Los Angeles on March 31.
Later in the song, Jay-Z rapped: “I told neighborhood Nipsey stay close/ A hundred million dollars on your schedule, lay low/ Tell your team to be on point in the places that they go/ I never dreamed he’d be killed in a place that he called home.”
The hip-hop star’s “B-Sides 2” show marked the grand re-opening of Webster Hall, following extensive renovations. The concert featured lesser-known tracks from Jay-Z’s career, and included appearances by Nas, Cam’ron and Jim Jones.
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At one point in the show, Jay-Z fired a not-so-subtle shot at box-office smash hit Avengers: Endgame, according to USA Today.
“Thank you all for being here,” he told the audience. “This sh-t means a lot to me. I know the Avengers is playing in a theater down the block and all, but the Avengers aren’t even real.”
By the way, Avengers: Endgame is the biggest movie in the world, opening this weekend with a record worldwide take of $1.2 billion.
