Jay-Z spent the last weekend of his JAŸ-Z30 celebration at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and gave each of the two sold-out nights a different cast. Friday, October 23, belonged to Scarface, John Legend and DJ Khaled. Saturday, October 24, brought Too $hort early in the set and then Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, who took over a long stretch near the end.
The shows mark the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt and the 25th of The Blueprint, and they followed earlier stops in New York, London and Paris. Badiyaa covered the opening leg, when three nights at Yankee Stadium grossed $42.3 million, a record for a rapper. No box office figures have been released for Los Angeles yet.
Friday: Scarface, a piano and a Nipsey Hussle nod
Jay-Z opened night one with “Hovi Baby” and moved quickly through “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” “Run This Town” and “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem).” His eldest daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, came out to play piano parts on “The Story of O.J.” and “Dead Presidents,” then hugged her father and waved to the crowd before leaving the stage.
The guest with the deepest history was Scarface. He joined for “This Can’t Be Life,” the track from Jay-Z’s 2000 album The Dynasty: Roc La Familia on which he is credited alongside Beanie Sigel, with Kanye West as producer. Jay-Z then let him run his own classic, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” The finale was “God Did,” with DJ Khaled and John Legend on stage.
Los Angeles got a local tribute too. Jay-Z worked a reference to Nipsey Hussle’s “Hussle & Motivate” into “Hard Knock Life” and used the “Last Time I Checc’d” instrumental during “On to the Next One.” His Friday stage outfits were custom pieces by stylist and designer June Ambrose.
The trending moment came from the stands. Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, the three members of Destiny’s Child, were seen dancing together in a suite. Beyoncé did not perform. Rihanna watched from the floor and posed for photos with fans, and other attendees included G-Eazy, Tia Mowry and Omari Hardwick.
Saturday: Dre and Snoop take the middle of the show
Night two opened differently, with “The Watcher 2,” and Too $hort arrived for “Blow the Whistle” a song later. The bigger swing came after “D’Evils”: Snoop Dogg performed “Murder Was the Case,” then Dr. Dre joined him for “The Next Episode,” “California Love,” “Nothin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” and “Still D.R.E.” before Jay-Z returned with “99 Problems.”
How the two setlists compare
The backbone stayed the same both nights. Reading the two published setlists side by side, the core of more than two dozen songs, from “Beach Is Better” through “Empire State of Mind” and the “Big Pimpin'” closer, repeats almost in order. The changes sit at the edges:
- Dropped on Saturday: “Hovi Baby,” “Can I Live,” “The Story of O.J.” and both Scarface songs.
- Added on Saturday: “The Watcher 2,” “D’Evils,” “Public Service Announcement (Interlude)” and an encore.
- Guest segments: five listed songs featured guests on Friday (two with Blue Ivy, two with Scarface, one with Legend and Khaled); six did on Saturday (one with Too $hort, one Snoop Dogg solo, four with Dre and Snoop).
That pattern says a lot about how the JAŸ-Z30 dates have been built. The main set is a fixed tour of the catalog, and the guest slots are where each city gets its own show. In the Bronx in July the guests were mostly Jay-Z’s own collaborators. In Inglewood, the second night handed roughly a sixth of the listed songs to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, which is unusual generosity for a headliner celebrating his own albums.
There is a fair critique too. Friday’s guest list was thin next to the Yankee Stadium nights, where Beyoncé, Nas, Eminem, Rihanna and Pharrell all took the stage. Fans who bought one night only saw half of what the weekend offered, and the Friday crowd got its biggest names in the seats rather than at the microphones.
SoFi Stadium, which opened in September 2020, seats 70,240 and can expand past 100,000 for major events. With both Inglewood nights sold out, the next number to watch is the Los Angeles gross, which would show whether the closing weekend matched the $14.1 million per night that Jay-Z averaged in New York.
Further reading
Image: Richard Humphrey, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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