Jay-Z headlined Philadelphia’s annual Roots Picnic on Saturday (March 30), marking his first solo headlining show in over five years. The highly-anticipated set also served as a prelude to a series of forthcoming New York performances celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut album Reasonable Doubt and its 2001 follow-up, The Blueprint. Watch footage from the performance, and a full set list, below.
Over the course of the 90-minute set, Jay-Z performed 30-plus songs from across catalog, showing love to big hits (“Dirt Off Your Shoulders,” “Empire State of Mind,” “Run This Town,” “N*gga’s In Paris”) and deeper cuts (“Can I Live,” “Marcy Me”) alike. He was backed by the Roots—who he notably collaborated with on his 2001 MTV Unplugged live album—and supported by a roster of guests including Jazmine Sullivan, Meek Mill (who performed his beloved Philly anthem “Dreams & Nightmares”), and Bilal. The show also featured an unofficial State Property reunion, with Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Peedi Crakk, Memphis Bleek, and Young Gunz all hopping on the mic at various intervals.
One of the night’s biggest surprises came just minutes into Jay-Z’s time on stage. After opening with 2002’s “Hovi Baby,” the rapper dove into a surprise four-minute freestyle, which he told the crowd he had refrained from practicing during rehearsals with the Roots. During the a capella performance, he appeared to take shots at Drake (“Them crackers got your publishing checks, go talk tough to them, don’t talk success to me”), Nicki Minaj, and Kanye West, whom Jay-Z took to task over disparaging comments the Bully rapper made last year about Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s children. “You ever heard of wonder-kin? My children are some of them,” he rapped. “Have you n*ggas have no shame? You really wanna get under my skin? I’ll really get under ya skin (stab).” (Despite the shade, Jay-Z still performed multiple songs from his and West’s joint album Watch the Throne, including “No Church in the Wild” and “Gotta Have It.”)
The freestyle arrived on the heels of a recent GQ interview wherein Jay-Z shared some thoughts on rap beef at large. He positioned beef within what he called “the four pillars of hip-hop,” breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, and battling, and expressed concern over the way the modern diss track goes beyond the excitement of “sparring” into character assassination. “It’s too far. It’s bringing people’s kids into it. I don’t like that,” he said. “Back then, you had the battle, it was fun, and you moved on. Now, I don’t know if it can hold up with the technology we have.”
Jay-Z released his most recent solo album, 4:44, in 2017. In 2018, he also released an album with Beyoncé, Everything Is Love, under the moniker The Carters.
