At Yankee Stadium, JAY-Z Made History. Then He Remixed It
Pulling from his past and present, JAY-Z delivered an all-time performance at Yankee Stadium on Friday night.
Peter A. BerryPeterA. BerryPeter is a writer and editor who covers music, movies, and all things dope.
Photo courtesy of Roc Nation.
About an hour after I devoured my surprisingly affordable thin-crust pizza from Yankee Stadium’s Colony Grill, my second or third favorite rapper began rewriting history. He punctuated the first revision with the most profound understatement ever made. Striding beneath the glow of celestial stage lights, JAY-Z approached his wifey, literally Beyoncé, before giving her props with the earnest admiration of a marketing exec whose wife just performed a neat trick at the company dinner party: “Oh, she can sing!”
Bey had been stepping in to perform Mary J. Blige’s portion of HOV’s canonical 1996 single “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” It’s a cut from Reasonable Doubt, a debut album that might also be his best. In front of a sold-out audience — the first of three consecutive record-breaking Yankee Stadium performances — HOV celebrated Reasonable Doubt’s 30th anniversary with the best kind of excess: imagine a sheet of boneless brownies and cookies with splashes of Hennessy and THC-infused caramel and ice cream resting just below. Except instead of leaving you overstuffed, it’s somehow only 100 calories, and the dessert’s been soaked in electrolytes that leave you hydrated instead of hungover. For about two hours, HOV served up a combination of the best raps he’s ever written, remixing them with nods to his past and present for a show that turned an anniversary concert into an interactive museum for his own legacy.
Photo courtesy of Roc Nation.
Here, theoretical exercises were pushed to their maximalist extreme. What if instead of having the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul on one of his most beloved songs, JAY-Z grabbed the greatest performer of the 21st century? What if Nas had made that HOV recording session 30 years ago? What if, during the defining performance of “Empire State of Mind,” Lil Mama didn’t suddenly come through and f—k it up? HOV answered those questions with a game of choose your own adventure.
HOV’s era-surfing began with “Dead Presidents.” Thankfully, it was the superior first version that didn’t make Reasonable Doubt. For the performance, HOV’s live band served up an instrumental that felt even more dream-like than the actual beat, with the tear-stained piano keys echoing into the eternity of an impossible audience. As he rapped, archival footage of a presidential funeral played on the screens behind him, which rightfully elevated the quest for cabbage to a matter of national importance. Something worth dying for. By the time the crowd shouted, “You know that n—a, JAY-Z, Shawn Carter?” it felt like I’d just watched a 21-gun salute.
The salutes multiplied when Nas Escobar popped out to perform the record HOV sampled for “Dead Presidents” just a couple of minutes later. But after just a few moments, the saxophones of “The World Is Yours” melted back into the twinkling ambiance of the “Dead Presidents” soundscape for a remix that, like the Modelo stain I got on my pants while trying to film the performance, didn’t exist until that moment. Neither did HOV’s live mashup of “Where I’m From” and Nas’ “NY State of Mind,” which unfolded about a minute later.
In what could’ve easily been an empty exhibition for fan service, HOV left his mark with technical efficiency and curatorial precision. The song sequencing gives the impression of the past and present versions of himself exchanging transmissions between Marcy Projects and Yankee Stadium. The ain’t shit drug-dealing playboy of “Ain’t No Nigga” morphed into the buttoned-up business loverboy of “Excuse Me Miss.” “Dead Presidents” literally samples “The World Is Yours,” and thematically, “Where I’m From” and “NY State of Mind” are spiritual cousins in much the same way “D’Evils” is related to “No Church in the Wild.” The “evils” HOV spoke of are both the precursor and successor to the nihilistic dystopia of the 2020s: from the "Super Predator" era to the "illegal immigrants" panic. Listening to “D’Evils” phase into the Watch the Throne single reminded me of something a suave bad guy told the less sophisticated bad guy moments before he was beaten to death in Daredevil season 1:
"They say the past is etched in stone, but it isn't. It's smoke trapped in a closed room, swirling... changing. Buffeted by the passing of years and wishful thinking. But even though our perception of it changes, one thing remains constant. The past can never be completely erased. It lingers. Like the scent of burning wood."
Photo courtesy of Roc Nation.
If there was any burning of wood in Yankee Stadium, it was the kind you cop from the bodega. If HOV’s past was the smoke, we were inhaling all of it. If anything lingered, it was audience members who wisely decided to stay for HOV’s post-credit scene run that included the biggest stadium status anthems of his career. But less literally, I’m thinking about what the bad guy said. Here, HOV collapsed the distance between his past and present. I just knew I was staring at 2003 Beyoncé in a Yankees fitted. And then it was Blue Ivy, who’s apparently become good enough at playing piano to serve up a flawless rendition of “Feelin’ It.” With his Yankee fitted sitting atop his head like a crown, his bulletproof vest looking like a fashion statement and his voice ascending the colosseum, it felt like I was watching the literal ‘97 HOV.
If it weren’t for an atypically shallow argument he made during an impromptu a cappella rhyme session near the beginning of the show, I might say the concert was flawless. But seeing Memphis Bleek and Jaz-O hit the stage with HOV almost made me forget anyway, something I won’t be able to say about the performance as a whole. Ditto for the Blueprint performance I pulled up to the next day, and probably for the Extra Innings show I didn’t. Eminem and Slick Rick came out on Saturday. Rihanna, Usher, Jadakiss, Clipse and seemingly everyone but Kanye came out on Sunday.
Photo courtesy of Roc Nation.
Before he began his first verse on “Can I Live” 30 years ago, HOV told us that rappers like himself offer us their lives. Then he asked us what we had to bring to the table. To be fair: collectively, millions of dollars. But, over the course of three nights, the 56-year-old supplied the most wholesome kind of gluttony, bringing his life, his songs, his wife, his daughter, his friends, and his collaborators. And just about everything else, too.
