Jay-Z on Getting Involved in Barclays Bookings: 'I Have Enough Jobs' (Video)

11:50 AM PDT 9/28/2012 by Andrew Hampp, Billboard

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The hip hop icon does, however, admit to a little bit of nepotism when it comes to the venue.

Jay-Z wants his eight-night residency at the Barclays Center, which kicks off Friday at the venue's grand opening, to be a "celebration." "I pretty much have sing-alongs at the concert and I want to encourage that even more," he told Billboard at a launch event at his Manhattan venue the 40/40 Club for NBA 2k13, a new video game whose soundtrack he executive produced. "It's like a gift to Brooklyn to have this, to all us Brooklynites, to have this arena and this team. We just want to celebrate this team since it's the first since the Dodgers."

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Though Jay-Z is also a minority investor in the venue, he will ultimately have little control over future bookings. "I have enough jobs," he said with a laugh. "But they'll still ask my opinion on most things. I don't want that job, though."

Rihanna, for example, just announced an upcoming gig on her Diamonds Tour, as have EDM trio Swedish House Mafia, clients of Roc Nation management partners Three Six Zero. "There's a little nepotism," Jay-Z allowed. "Rihanna's on Roc Nation, so of course she's playing the Barclays."

The rap mogul is also hopeful for future installments of Made In America, the first-year Philly festival he curated and headlined this past Labor Day. "Oh yeah, we'll do it again," he said, before countering, "Well, we want to do it again. I don't know if it'll actually happen, but probably."

As for how executive producing a video game differs from an album, Jay had a cakewalk with NBA 2K13. "It was more like making a playlist than executive producing. But don't tell 'em that," he said with a laugh. "Executive producing an album, there was like 48 iterations of G.O.O.D., Kanye's album, before we got to the ones that wound up on the actual album."