Iconic New York City venue, Webster Hall, reopened its doors on Friday night (April 26) after two years of renovations for JAY-Z’s B-Sides 2 concert.
During the rare event, Hov — dressed to the nines — brought out a roster of his famous friends, including Nas, Cam’ron and Jim Jones.
At one point, the Roc Nation mogul asked his longtime engineer DJ Young Guru to lower the bass as he went into a two-minute long freestyle dedicated to slain Grammy Award-nominated rapper Nipsey Hussle.
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“Gentrify your own hood before these people do it,” he spit. “Claim eminent domain and have your people move in/That’s a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing/For anybody still confused as to what he was doing.”
Nas also joined Hov on stage for a solid 10-minute rap volley, performing cuts such as “The World Is Yours,” “Dead Presidents” and “New York State of Mind,” while Cam’ron hopped on stage to tag team “Welcome To New York City.”
Terminal 5 hosted Jay’s first B-Sides concert in 2015. He performed cuts such as “Where I’m From,” “So Ghetto” and “44 Four’s,” a remix to his 1996 Reasonable Doubt joint “22 Two’s.” He also linked up with his Roc-A-Fella team — Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, Freeway and the Young Gunz — for a live performance of “You, Me and Her” and “What We Do.”
Much like he did with Nip, Jay paid tribute to the late Chinx as part of the performance as well.
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“[A] young man got killed in Queens,” he said at the time. “His name was Chinx. And I think it’s real important for us — Like, I can’t understand that we’re seriously under attack like never before. Rest in peace to Chinx. And we still killing each other. We need to understand that we are kings and queens.”
Other notable guests on-hand for the 2019 version included Yasiin Bey, Dave Chappelle, Fabolous, Swizz Beatz and more.
Check out photos of the event below.
