Beyonce & JAY-Z Dedicate Brooklyn Park Bench To His 93-Year-Old Grandmother

It was a speech from JAY-Z’s grandmother, Hattie White, that helped inspire the title of Beyoncé’s landmark 2016 album Lemonade. This Christmas, the Carter family left a similarly lasting memorial to the 93-year-old Brooklynite.

Over the holidays, the Carter family -- JAY-Z, Beyoncé, their three kids and Grandma Hattie -- visited a bench in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park that has reportedly been inscribed with a tribute in the matriarch’s honor.

According to the JAY-Z Instagram fan account aintnojigga, the inscription reads: “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. With love and admiration to our root, Hattie White.”

Three years ago, at her 90th birthday party, White delivered a speech that wound up being sampled on the Lemonade track “Freedom” and later inspired the album’s title: “I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”

After a very successful 2018 that saw the Carters tour the world and release an acclaimed album together, it seems fitting they ended the year paying tribute to the family’s roots.

SOURCE