“Jay-Z Has Sold Out.” That was the message taped to box office windows at the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday night. As a statement of fact, this was plain and clear. But it didn’t take much interpretive effort to catch an unintended double meaning in the phrase.
Jay-Z performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday night. The concert, a homecoming to his native borough, was in part a promotion for his comeback album, which was released on Tuesday.
For Jay-Z’s Saturday performance at the Howard Gilman Opera House, the stage setting was relatively spare.
Figuring out what a Jay-Z sellout would entail is a trickier business. He’s the high-rolling president of Def Jam Recordings, but also, he insists, still a hustler at his core. He treated his concert as a Brooklyn homecoming, and a no-nonsense crowd reinforced the feeling. So did the setup, which had him backed only by a D.J., Green Lantern, and a lyrical partner, Memphis Bleek, along with basic stage lighting and a video screen.
But before the first of many roof-raising shout-outs to the borough of his origin, Jay-Z opened with the title track from his new album, “Kingdom Come” (Roc-a-Fella/Island Def Jam). The song is a marvel of messianic conviction — “Not only N.Y.C., I’m hip-hop’s savior,” Jay-Z boasts in the chorus — that lays claim not just to hip-hop’s throne but its soul. More literally it heralds a successful return to the game, after a less-than-successfuldeparture from it.
“Just when they thought it was all over, I put the whole world on my back and broad shoulders,” Jay-Z barked at one point in the tune, overstating both the impact of his so-called retirement and the weight of his burden. Because most of the people in the crowd knew “Kingdom Come” by heart, they pitched in, making the sentiment feel more jubilant. During one of several superhero metaphors, Jay-Z pointedly dropped out and they managed to finish his line, “Superman is alive.”
They managed a lot more over the course of the show, including the entirety of the Notorious B.I.G.’s verse in “Mo Money Mo Problems.” (That moment came during a medley of throwback anthems by fallen hip-hop heroes, a roll call that also included Jam Master Jay, Tupac and Aaliyah.) Jay-Z’s sturdy vintage material inspired a similar response, with even his more slippery lines being echoed verbatim in the hall.
The finer nuances of Jay-Z’s flow — his sleek syncopations and deceptively casual cadences — were only partly discernible in a show plagued by muddy acoustics. Perhaps for this reason he delivered some of his lyrics a cappella. It was in those moments that the full measure of his charisma came across, since the unaccompanied setting gave him a chance to lower his volume, expand and contract his tempo, and play with some subtleties of tone.
Still, the concert’s highlights were delirious with bombast. One of the most exuberant was “Show Me What You Got,” a track from the new album that has already, deservedly, spent some time in the Top 10; scenes from the music video, involving fast boats, faster cars and the opulence of Monaco, underscored some suave-like-James-Bond braggadocio. (Somehow Bond suits him better than Superman.)
Later, near the show’s end, Green Lantern started up the horn intro to “Crazy in Love,” the gargantuan Beyoncé hit from 2003. Any speculation about whether Beyoncé would show up to sing the tune with her longtime boyfriend was quickly dispelled, as Jay-Z dove straight into his guest verse. It was a weird moment — perhaps loaded with implication, perhaps not — but in any case the verse sounded great.
So did “Encore,” which followed, and served as a finale. Interestingly, the tune, from Jay-Z’s brilliant but premature farewell, “The Black Album,” prompted more than a few people to leave the hall. But this was only fair. They knew for a fact he wasn’t going anywhere this time.
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