HBO’s The Shop has an incredibly simple concept: NBA powerhouse/Space Jam movie star LeBron James and his longtime business partner Maverick Carter sit down with famous individuals in a barbershop and just talk about whatever comes to mind. Topics can get heavy, like the narratives revolving around race and social justice or Antonio Brown’s famously contentious relationship with Ben Rothlisberger, but most of the time it’s a lot of laughing and joking around.
In the latest preview of the show’s upcoming second season, that genial atmosphere seems to be the dominant feeling as guests Jay-Z, Bad Bunny, Nneka Ogwumike, and Paul Rivera sit down with James and Carter. Whether Jay-Z will have a battle to the death with Maverick over who gets to be crowned Carter Prime is currently unknown. We’ll just have to watch and find out.
Comically, Jay-Z muses in the preview about forgetting “all my lyrics” when he first went up on stage. Jay is obviously one of the all-time greats, but he was never known for being particularly verbose or dense in his lyric writing, which probably accounts for all those early references to Cristal. He was more about flow, braggadocio, and swagger, three traits that no one could beat him at when in his prime. Come to think of it, most probably couldn’t beat him at it now.
Jay brings that up in the promo as well. “Being confident is taking chances and being fearless.” For all his real life business acumen, Jay-Z rose to the heights that he did because he was the king of self-promotion. There’s a reason why “Turn that 62 to 125, 125 to 250, 250 to half a million, ain’t nothing nobody can do with me” is one of his most iconic lines. We’re not accountants sitting back and checking his math to make sure he’s telling the truth, but there’s not a single person who hears that line and doesn’t believe it. Whether that was an actual number or not, Jay willed it into existence and now half a million is a drop in the bucket for the literal billionaire.
Check out the preview for The Shop: Uninterrupted down below. The new season premieres on May 28.
