• September 26, 2011

Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter will be the first performer to play the Barclays Center of Brooklyn when the controversial venue opens in September 2012.

  The rap artist owns just under 2% of the New Jersey Nets, the NBA team that will keep its name -- albeit with Brooklyn instead of New Jersey -- once it moves to the new digs on Flatbush Avenue.

  The artist was joined at a press event on Monday at the construction site for the future arena by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Forest City Ratner Companies Chairman and CEO Bruce Ratner, and Barclays Center and Nets CEO Brett Yormark.

  The stadium's siting, design, development, and construction has been rife with controversy around issues of eminent domain, jobs, green space, and forced evictions, gave rise to a local grass roots organization, Develop Don't Destroy. That is all, apparently in the past, as the Nets launch a marketing campaign for the fall phase of " Al Access Pass featuring JAY-Z."

The campaign, targeting the Wall Street area and lower Manhattan, is on 250,000 deli coffee cups, 150 taxi tops throughout Manhattan, telephone kiosks in SoHo and Tribeca, several print publications, and billboards across the street from the Barclays Center site. The campaign also includes a major direct mail component.