Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Jeymes Samuel have teamed back up for another film and this time they’re taking viewers from the Old West in “The Harder They Fall” to the New Testament in “The Book of Clarence.”

The hip-hop mogul and music producer turned director came together for the Los Angeles premiere of the film on Friday, January 5 where Jay, also known as Hova, opened up about the inspiration behind the new Lakeith Stanfield-led film.

“I just want to have fun. I want to put out a product that I believe in. I want to represent my culture, obviously, you know, we put ourselves in the Old West rightfully. And now we’re putting ourselves, you know, in the New Testament as we should be, you know, so that’s it,” Jay-Z said on the red carpet, via African News.

The new film tells the story of Clarence, a down-on-his-luck man who’s struggling to find a better life for his family while fighting to free himself of the debt he’s in. After witnessing the power and glory of the rising Messiah, Clarence decides to risk it all by carving his own path to a divine existence and presenting himself as another Messiah figure.

It was a labor of love for director Samuels who spent decades making the film and put it on pause to release “The Harder They Fall” in 2021.

“Do you know what? It was always time to tell the story. But no one was going to make it. I had to be in a position where I could get it made. But it was always time. I wrote it, I formulated it in like, early 2000s, formulating the idea. Worked on a couple of the songs in 2005,” he revealed.

“But I wrote it in 2017, and then ‘The Harder They Fall’ came out, and I just knew I had to go to the Old West, and then the New Testament, you know what I mean? So, I suppose it was just time in my life, but really, it’s always been time.”

The two-hour and 16-minute film premieres in theaters on Friday, January 12.

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