Tag: Yankee Stadium

Damon Dash isn't giving Jay-Z's Yankee Stadium victory lap a standing ovation, saying the three-night spectacle looked less like a celebration and more like a carefully crafted marketing ploy. Dame unloaded on The Art of Dialogue, picking apart Hov's anniversary shows from a business perspective rather than a musical one, questioning why the concerts happened for the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt and arguing the entire production felt designed to push Yankees-branded merchandise.

Over the weekend, Jay-Z marked the anniversaries of his albums "Reasonable Doubt" and "The Blueprint" with a three-day residency at Yankee Stadium in New York. While it was only the first stop of three more anniversary concerts scheduled for Los Angeles, Paris and London, it set the tone for exciting moments to come, as Hov was joined by a star-studded list of guests onstage, including Beyoncé, Usher, Fat Joe and Pharrell.

One hour after Jay-Z was supposed to be onstage Sunday night, almost half the Yankee Stadium crowd was still stuck outside the venue creating chaos. A few hundred people without tickets bum-rushed an entrance, prompting security to shut down all gates. At 10:15 PM, twenty thousand fans were lined up outside, and even A-listers like A$AP Rocky, Tyler the Creator, and Usher were locked out. Jay decided to wait rather than start late, not wanting to abandon fans still outside. Finally at midnight, they started the show, ending around 3 AM with fireworks.

Jay-Z's second night at Yankee Stadium featured crowd drama when two fans got into altercations with security guards. The incident occurred during Alicia Keys' performance of "Empire State of Mind." Exclusive video shows one fan punching a security officer in the face before being taken away, while another fan was restrained on the ground. Sources indicate the fight started because the fans were not in their assigned seats and were blocking other attendees' views. When security arrived and asked them to leave, the men refused, triggering the physical altercation.