Let's hear it for Jay-Z.
The Brooklyn-born rapper will sing his ode to the city, "Empire State of Mind," at the World Series kickoff game Wednesday night. Fellow New Yorker, Alicia Keys will join him at the new Yankee Stadium to sing the New York-centric hook, "These streets will make you feel brand new,/The lights will inspire you,/Let's hear it for New York."
Jay-Z -- who raps on the same song "I made the Yankee hat more famous than the Yankees can" -- says the chance to perform during the World Series is "a once in a lifetime experience."
"First of all, the new [Yankee] Stadium — it's the Yankees and it's Game One of the World Series," he said, according to MTV.com. "I'm beyond excited about it and on top of that, it's a New York record that pays homage to New York. The timing of that couldn't be better."
It isn't the first song off his Blueprint 3 album to blast through the speakers of Yankee Stadium. A parodied version of "Run This Town," played to a crowd of 60,000 last week. David Brody, executive producer of Z100's Elvis Duran Show pumped Yankee references into the hit song, which proclaimed, "Yankees gonna run this town tonight." And "Empire State of Mind" has been Yankee Captain Derek Jeter's anthem every time he steps to the plate.
Prediction: some bad Boston or Philly radio morning show will make a parody called "Evil Empire State of Mind."
