Thirteen years after his last solo concert in Paris, at least the Stade de France was needed to hold the return of one of the most influential artists in modern music — someone who, over the past thirty years, has tried almost everything and succeeded at almost everything. Les Inrocks summed it up in ten key moments. Les Inrockuptibles ↗
The first is right away that he released his debut on his own label. In the mid-1990s, there was Payday Records, a small label focused on New York hip hop, and the deal was for thirty thousand dollars for the production of several albums. But when the company released a single that Jay-Z had already been giving away for free on the streets of Brooklyn, it flopped. Freed from his contractual obligations, he founded Roc-A-Fella Records and released his first album on it in 1996, which went platinum six years later. Les Inrockuptibles ↗
"When I meet Patrick Moxey today, the former head of Pay Day Records, he lowers his eyes. He knows he missed the boat," journalist Combat Jack, who was close to Jay-Z, said in 2013. The second point on the list is that he is the most direct heir of Notorious B.I.G. — they were friends, and Jay-Z has never missed an opportunity to point that out. Les Inrockuptibles ↗
The third point is The Blueprint, which the list ranks among the most influential albums of the last quarter century. Jay-Z recorded it with a tight-knit team — produced by Kanye West, Just Blaze and Bink! — and it came out on September 11, 2001, a date that, according to Les Inrocks, did it no harm at all. Alongside Illmatic by Nas and Ready to Die by Notorious B.I.G., they consider it one of the records destined for immortality. Les Inrockuptibles ↗
The remaining points move through Big Pimpin' and the opening up of New York rap toward the American South, all the way to his business chapters. For the Paris audience, the list is above all a reminder of exactly what is returning to the stage after thirteen years.
Illustrative photo: Jay-Z at a concert in 2008. Photo: Mike Barry / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
Jay-Z returns to Paris after thirteen years. Les Inrocks recall how he changed music
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