The 2023 exhibit dedicated to Jay-Z at the Brooklyn Public Library was a once-in-a-lifetime event, complete with rare photos spanning his entire career, a recreation of the hallowed Baseline Studios where many a Roc-a-Fella classic was made, an actual model of Reasonable Doubt-era Jay’s famed ‘96 Lexus…the list goes on. Anyone who didn’t make it out or brave the perennially long entry lines for the installation, which ran from summer 2023 through last December, sadly missed out on a banger.
The Book of HOV, which goes on sale today (December 4, un-coincidentally), is a coffee-table-book preservation of the BPL exhibit, and it’s just as immersive and rich in detail in its own way. And in true Jay-Z fashion, there’s levels to it—more specifically, price tiers, including a $2000 ultimate edition and five copies of a Daniel Arsham-designed Collector’s Edition that will retail for $100,000. (That version aims to earn your six-figure spend with “a silver-foil stamped tri-fold cover with the rapper’s manifestations and custom ‘Jay-Z blue’ dyed leather binding, encased in an Arsham-designed white-bronze clamshell, in his signature eroded style, and etched with some of Jay-Z’s most memorable lyrics set beneath “The Book of HOV” in embossed, oversized lettering.”)
The Book of Hov: A Tribute to JAY-Z.Via Assouline.
