Ahead of his Yankee Stadium shows, we're looking back on Jay-Z's classic debut album.
Left: Nitro/Getty Images. Right: Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. Illustration by Barbara Gibson.
When Jay-Z announced a run of shows at Yankee Stadium in New York to celebrate the anniversaries of 1996’s Reasonable Doubt and 2001’s The Blueprint, tickets — to paraphrase “Can’t Knock the Hustle” — moved faster than a rabbit gets… well, let’s just say the July 10 and 11 shows sold out in hours. (A July 12 concert was later added to meet demand.) That announcement arrived 30 years after his first Billboard chart appearance, back when Brooklyn’s Finest was just starting to conquer the globe and be chronicled by Billboard.
The Charting ‘Dead’
“Jay-Z, who has a fluid, flippy flow, is moving forward in the rap game with the dope, double-sided single ‘Dead Presidents’ backed with ‘Ain’t No N—a,’ ” reported The Rap Column in the April 6, 1996, issue of Billboard. Hailing his “loose lasso lines,” columnist Havelock Nelson said the former track “gained street appreciation and received radio airplay,” while the latter “features feminine phenomenon Foxy Brown” and “shows signs of becoming an even bigger smash.” His first top 10 Hot Rap Songs single, the double side peaked at No. 4 on that chart and hit No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100.
