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He’s a business, man — Jay-Z to christen the Barclays Center

Jay-Z brings it all back home
Photo by Paul Martinka

Rap mogul Jay-Z will christen the Barclays Center when the under-construction $1-billion home for the Brooklyn-bound Nets opens on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues next fall.

The hip hop star, who owns a very small portion of the basketball team, will headline the venue’s first performance during a three-week grand opening at the Prospect Heights arena in September, 2012, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Jay-Z is set to announce the dates at a press conference at the Barclays Center on Monday — where Nets officials are expected to unveil a new team name (see sidebar).

It will be a “major announcement,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark tweeted.

The 19,000-seat arena is the centerpiece of developer Bruce Ratner’s $5-billion Atlantic Yards mega-project, which was once slated to contain 16 residential towers stretching from Flatbush to Vanderbilt avenues — but all but one of the towers are on hold due to a weak economy.

In April, Nets officials announced that the Barclays Center would open on Sept. 28, 2012, with a series of concerts and shows — such as college basketball games and Disney on Ice — in the run up to the Nets inaugural season.