Jay-Z was almost entirely truthful to the source material for his 25th anniversary Yankee Stadium show on Saturday to celebrate “The Blueprint,” setting guests artists to high wattage but low frequency as he trotted out Eminem, Pharrell Williams and Slick Rick for a curtailed 90-minute set.
The Brooklyn native had already established a tall precedent on Friday to commemorate the 30-year milestone of “Reasonable Doubt,” his 1996 debut that elevated him from hugging blocks to topping charts. The first of three shows was all bells and whistles right from the start, with his wife Beyoncé coming out for “Can’t Knock the Hustle” as a table-setter for guests like Nas, Jaz-O and Alicia Keys.
Jay-Z‘s Saturday night show was less flashy as he traipsed through the entirety of “The Blueprint” with the very notable omission of “Takeover,” his epic diss track against Nas and Prodigy. That song, left unacknowledged, could have either been reconfigured as an attack at his current foes, much like his freestyle at the Roots Picnic in late May, or turned into a sardonic spectacle, perhaps as a gesture towards the heightened tension that lingered in the rap world at the time.
But no, Jay instead hewed close to what he otherwise laid on wax with producers including Kanye West, Bink! and Just Blaze back in 2001 as they constructed one of the foundational rap albums of this millennium. The show began with instant homage as Jay brought out Slick Rick for “The Ruler’s Back,” launching into the factory line of songs that made up the spine of “The Blueprint.” There were stadium-sized highs (“U Don’t Know”), somber lows (“Song Cry”) and a highly assumed appearance from Eminem, who traded verses with Jay on “Renegade” and reemerged to perform his signature hit “Lose Yourself.”
