JAY-Z's 4:44 cut "Marcy Me"—the standout track on his best record in over a decade—is the culmination of a decades-long story centered around the projects that he grew up in. It's "an ode to Jigga's youth in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that has long been a bulwark for Brooklyn's black community and has spawned an all-star team of African-American musical talent," Brandon Harris wrote for Noisey in July. "In his own testimony, the Bed-Stuy of Carter's preteen years consisted mostly of the inner workings of the Marcy Houses and the streets surrounding the complex."In a new video released this morning for a poem caled "Dream. On.," JAY-Z revisits the Marcy Houses once again. "I'm from where dreaming ain't allowed / Especially when you dreamin' aloud," he says as the camera cuts across a home in the projects. "Enough to dream your self esteem into clouds / It takes tears, sweat, blood, 5 CCs / Because I know what the kid in 5C seed."But more so than on "Marcy Me," JAY-Z turns the lens back on himself, focusing on his rise from being a kid in the projects to becoming a mogul. "My vision was big enough to get me out of the space," he says. "I wanted to pass how far I see / I wondered could a kid from Mars see a kid from Marcy."The video, which you can watch at the top of the page, is intimate and meticulously put together. The clip will be shown at the start of JAY-Z's set at Made In America this coming weekend.Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.
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