Jay-Z took advantage of his time in the Beltway on Wednesday to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “I just came from the White House,” he told the audience at the Verizon Center on the Washington D.C. leg of his Blueprint 3 tour. According to The Washington Post, Hov made the remark during the last minutes of his concert.
Officials confirmed to the Post on Thursday (March 4) that President Barack Obama had indeed met with the Brooklyn MC and the pair chatted briefly. In an interview overseas last month, Jay-Z revealed that when he once called President Obama, he heard BP3 playing in the background.
He also told British talk-show host Jonathan Ross he had been invited to the White House by the Obama administration “a couple of times,” but at the time, the witty lyricist hadn’t had a chance to take the president up on the offer. “Hopefully we’ll keep him in for eight years, so I’ll have time to get there” Jay joked.
The Roc Nation boss was an avid supporter of Obama during the presidential campaign. He also referred to him in a series of lyrics, most notably for Young Jeezy’s hit “My President,” to which Jay-Z contributed a verse on the remix that premiered during a party that coincided with the president’s inauguration.
“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther could walk/ Martin Luther walked so Barack Obama could run/ Barack Obama ran so all the children could fly,” he raps on the track. “So I’mma spread my wings/ You could meet me in the sky.”
“It’s just the progression. … You sat, you walked, you ran, you ran to fly,” he said about his Obama rhyme last year on the eve of the inauguration. “You know, just the progression and how far we’ve come as a nation. It feels good to say that, ’cause I never had that type of feeling to say ‘as a nation,’ like I was part of the American dream. And I believe a lot of people didn’t feel like a part of the American process for so long.”
At Wednesday’s show, a fan jumped onstage and was escorted off by Jay’s bodyguard.