Alicia Keys and Beat Street Records owner Gary Jamal, photographed in the legendary Beat Street Records store at 349 Fulton Ave in Downtown Brooklyn, N.Y. during an in-store record release for Alicia’s Songs in A Minor on June 26, 2001.

“She would not leave; she was here for so many hours,” Gary recalls to Billboard magazine. “She kissed everybody hello, and when they told her she had to go, she said ‘These are my fans, and I’m staying until everyone gets their autograph.’”

Favored shopping destination for some of the industry’s biggest DJs and hip-hop artists. Specialising in used and hard-to-find original records. Hip-hop accounted for most of the store’s 5,000-plus vinyl titles, Jay-Z did an in-store back in 1996 before his first album, Reasonable Doubt. Foxy Brown filmed the video for her song “B.K. Anthem” in front of the store, and MTV often used the location in its video countdown programming. Artists who have made in-store appearances for record releases at Beat Street include Lil’ Kim, Sean Paul, Red Man, Ghostface Killah, Carl Thomas, Capone-N-Noreaga, Erick Sermon, and the late Aaliyah. 

The original 500-square-foot store opened in 1981. Four relocations later, the store finally settled at 349 Fulton Ave., adopting the Beat Street name in 1984, after the film. Owned by three brothers: Gary, Ricky and Fred Jamal, the brothers were more interested in the music side of the business. They took over Beat Street in 1990 with the intention of transforming it into a music-only store. “We’re not a Tower Records or a Virgin,” Fred the eldest says to Billboard. “But we try to special-order a lot of titles that you wouldn’t see at Virgin.” Fred continued: “This business is not a profitable business at all. We never really got into it for money. We just loved it, and we got into it because we enjoy it.”