- An exhibit in Brooklyn highlighting the life and career of rapper Jay-Z features his 1993 Lexus GS300.
- The white GS300 was featured in the “Dead Presidents” video and mentioned in other Jay-Z songs.
- The exhibit is at the Brooklyn Public Library and runs through December.
When Jay-Z says in “Empire State of Mind,” that he’s “cruisin’ down 8th Street, off-white Lexus,” this is the car he’s talking about. The rapper’s 1993 Lexus GS300 is currently on display in New York City, and we headed down to the Brooklyn Public Library to take a look at it in the flesh.
A pristine example of the first-generation GS mid-size luxury sedan, this particular vehicle is still owned by Jay-Z himself. It features a white-over-beige color scheme and chrome wheels. You can spot it in the music video for Jay-Z’s 1996 song, “Dead Presidents.” It was also mentioned in the song, “Can I Live,” also from the 1996 album Reasonable Doubt, and in the 2009 hit, “Empire State of Mind,” featuring Alicia Keys.
The GS is part of an exhibit put on by the library called The Book of HOV that celebrates Jay-Z’s work and legacy. It also includes books, photos, clothing, awards, videos, and many other artifacts from Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter’s career so far. The exhibit runs through December and is free and open to the public at the Brooklyn Public Library main branch at 10 Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York.
Senior Editor
Despite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.