JAY-Z goes where rappers have not tread before
Jay-Z goes where rappers have not tread before: Headlining Britain's Glastonbury Festival in 2008,
when Jay-Z was named as a headlining act for Britain's fiercely rock-centric Glastonbury Festival -- a first for any hip-hop performer, let alone one of rap's epochal superstars -- the island nation erupted in furious debate. They're giving a rapper domain over one of rock's elite events? Critics derided the decision as "a disaster" and "tragic," assailing Glastonbury itself as "contaminated." No less an eminence than Noel Gallagher of the Brit-pop quintet Oasis provided an antagonistic voice of dissent. "I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance," Gallagher said in an interview with the BBC, citing the festival's "history of guitar music."
To Jay (birth name: Shawn Corey Carter), the situation smacked of segregation. "That was the old guard standing in the way, saying, 'This is rock music. This is sacred,' " he said, seated in his wood-lined corner office, a stone's throw from Times Square. "It was one of those hurdles we had to break down."
B-boy braggadocio is one thing, but a certain performance anxiety set in when the rapper first laid eyes on Glastonbury's heaving masses: nearly a quarter-million festival-goers camped out in a vast tent city surrounding the outdoor venue in the British countryside. Around 70,000 of them, some openly hostile, awaited his set.
"It felt like we were invading a country," Jay said. " 'Whoa. There's a lot of people out there.' I had never played before that many people in my life. 'What did we just do? This had better work.' "
"Jay-Z is more than a rapper," said Ebro Darden, programming director of New York's influential urban radio station Hot 97 FM. "People forget he has a platinum rock album: the mash-up thing he did with Linkin Park. He has done songs with Chris Martin and performed with Coldplay many times. Then add in [Jay's] high profile and the big intangible: People believe what he's saying in his music. He's authentic."
Time was when it was enough for Jay-Z, 40, to flex his drawing power in ways that didn't necessarily put him in dramatic confrontation with the rock 'n' roll firmament.
...and "Empire State of Mind" (featuring Alicia Keys) among them. He retired from performing in 2004 after an ill-fated co-headlining tour with R&B superstar R. Kelly fell apart midstream, and assumed presidency of his label, Island Def Jam (before the inevitable Michael Jordan-like "Adios retirement!" moment in 2006). He married R&B royalty, Beyoncé Knowles, in a hush-hush ceremony last year.
Then capped it all off by signing one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of pop: a deal with Live Nation worth $150 million.
After erupting from Brooklyn's rough-and-tumble Marcy Housing Projects to break through as a recording artist in 1996, Jigga's initial efforts as a showman were probably better intended than received. "All my early years? Forget it. I was a horrible performer," Jay said, admitting he learned it the hard way from DMX during a co-headlining tour in 1998. "DMX tore me to pieces. I remember being stunned."
Through a combination of competitive urgency and the kind of icy professionalism for which he has become known, Jay-Z diagnosed what needed to be done. Namely, highlighting his nimble lyricism by frequently rapping a cappella and executing blustery moves like running through the audience while delivering rhymes that raised the bar on DMX's macho, shirt-off stage posturing.
"He had me really working. But I had to figure this out," Jay continued. "If you want to be a headliner, you better put on a headline show."
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