Jay-Z will live-stream the last of his eight concerts at New York City's Barclays Center to launch his new YouTube channel, reports USA Today.

It was all announced by the man himself yesterday (October 4th 2012) that his performance at the new Brooklyn sports arena will be live-streamed on Saturday at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time. The rapper's new channel shows the emergence of modern technology in music, and especially rap, as recent artists like A$AP Rocky and Frank Ocean have made their names online. It's not as if Jay-Z needs to make his name, though, but using an already established website to stream gigs will no doubt increase his profile further. The new channel is part of an original programming initiative by YouTube. Life and Times promises a line-up of "in depth lifestyle pieces" based on the tastes and interests of Jay-Z, who is marking the opening of the Barclays Center with a weeklong series of shows. The arena is the new home of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, of which Jay-Z is a minority owner.

"His philosophy has always been to do things out of the box, do them first, do them in a surprising way," says IconicTV co-founder and chief creative officer Michael Hirschorn, the man behind the collaboration with YouTube. "I think that's one of the main reasons he has kept his brand as fresh and robust as he has because he's constantly surprising the public with what he's doing."