GoKawiilOn Friday, when Hov took the stage at Yankee Stadium in front of some 45,000 people, that proved true. He barreled through two hours of hits on a bare stage backlit by a massive 2,952-square-foot outfield-spanning screen showing images from his early days in New York. Accompanied by a 10-person band and an 18-piece string section, he performed hits like “Can’t Knock the Hustle” with his wife Beyoncé singing the chorus originally performed by Mary J. Blige and “Dead Presidents,” alongside Nas whose “The World Is Yours” the song sampled a version of. The moments fans posted on social media or shared with their friends didn’t involve elaborate props or costumes; it was just Jay-Z and the guests—his daughter Blue Ivy Carter (she played keys on “Feelin’ It”), his mentor Jaz-O—he brought out to surprise them.
That’s the way it is when one of the artists most identified with New York plays his hometown. Jay-Z’s mini-residency was originally planned as just two shows—Friday’s, honoring 1996’s Reasonable Doubt, and Saturday’s, celebrating 2001’s The Blueprint—but a third Sunday show, dubbed “Extra Innings,” got added after the first two quickly sold out.
“The tickets sold as quickly for this event as any that I've ever seen,” says Scott Krug, the Yankees’ chief financial officer.
Jay-Z’s return to the New York stage is also the latest in a series of culturally significant moments in the city: the World Cup, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks weren’t even in the playoffs when Jay-Z originally announced the hometown shows; in the interim they won the NBA championship, and the rapper’s “Empire State of Mind”—alongside Frank Sinatra’s cover of “Theme From New York, New York”—became an anthem of their victory. That made the already high expectations for this weekend’s events even higher.