(Video) JAY-Z Reflects on His Rise From Marcy Projects to Roc Nation in Poem ‘Dream on’
JAY-Z and Budweiser teamed up to create “Dream On” as Hov prepares for his upcoming Budweiser-sponsored Made In America Festival.
In the gloomy visual for “Dream On”, JAY-Z journeys back to Brooklyn to visit his old Marcy Project building and heads inside apartment 5C. As the door opens to reveal the run-down apartment with stripped ceilings and old appliances, he begins his emotional poem. “I’m from where dreaming ain’t allowed/ Especially when you’re dreaming aloud,” he says. “Enough to dream your self-esteem into clouds.”
Hov reminisces about young JAY’s dream of one day becoming a rapper and how the only “stars” he ever saw were the celebrities on his TV. “When I first saw stars, television was my telescope/ For me, something that could see me free was a bar/ Through diamonds in the sky that never came down, now that’s a star,” the “4:44” rapper says. The camera hovers over the then-budding rapper’s notebook and past-due bills scattered across the kitchen table as he closes out his poem on a positive note.
“You are whatever you say you are/ Turn any situation around/ Who…are…you?” Hov concludes as the sun peaks through the apartment window. “God.”
Watch the video of “Dream On” below.
