The king reclaims his crown
Shawn “Jay-z” Carter has something to prove again, and the music world is better for it. Revered as the best rapper of his generation, the New Yorker has sold more than 100million records and won 21 Grammys during his 21-year career. He’s more famous now than he’s ever been – as a businessman who runs Spotify rival Tidal and entertainment company Roc Nation, and as one half of the world’s biggest celebrity power couple (the other being pop superstar Beyoncé Knowles).
And yet, his position as the leader of the hip-hop pack has been receding. The 47-year-old has found himself overtaken musically by his wife, protégé Kanye West and new pretenders like Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Also, his musical worth has been overshadowed by tabloid tittletattle of infidelities.
Carter’s excellent recent album, 4.44, came across as a lean, unfussy attempt to reconnect with music fans. This headline set at the V Festival – his first UK live performance in four years – sent an even clearer message: when Jay-z is focused and on form, few can match him. Opener Public Service Announcement was a transparent statement of intent: “Allow me to reintroduce myself,” Carter demanded.
Shunning the bling for a white hoodie, black tracksuit bottoms and baseball cap, Carter gave a gripping performance of tightly wound intensity. The set was heavy with songs from 4.44, and the Stevie Wonder A reintroduction: Jay-z performed an unglamorous set of hits at V Festival to thrilled crowds and Nina Simone samples provided a warm, soulful, sometimes jazzy bedrock for the idiosyncratic offbeat flow on Smile and The Story of OJ.
The crowd had seemed subdued on Sunday afternoon, perhaps still recovering from Pink’s pop extravaganza the night before, or apprehensive of the black clouds overhead. But with the first electronic bleeps of N*ggas in Paris, they surged into life. From that point on, they barely stopped bouncing through the relentless rain as Carter scattered hits like the swooning R’N’B of Empire State of Mind, the East Coast hip-hop of Dirt off Your Shoulder and the Beastie Boys-ish clunk of 99 Problems.
Throughout, Carter let his music do the talking. This was an unglamorous show: there were no crowd-pleasing stage pyrotechnics, no guest stars (despite Rihanna watching in the wings), and no hubristic monologues. The closest we got to a confessional soliloquy was when he performed Family Feud, the bare-hearted fulcrum of 4.44, which tackles his infidelity with the now-infamous “Becky with the good hair”, first reported via Beyoncé’s Lemonade album last year.
At the start of his encore, Carter paid tribute to Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, with a rare performance of the pair’s 2008 hiprock mash-up hit Numb/encore. He seemed openly emotional, hugging the mic to make sure every word was pristinely recreated. Last came Young Forever, his semi-cover of the Eighties hit from German synth-pop act Alphaville. “Energy never dies,” Carter said, subverting the song’s forlorn, misty-eyed mantra into one of ageless defiance. He sounded like he truly believed it.