Exclusive: How Jay-Z Pulled Off a Surprise-Filled Show During New York’s Wildest Summer
Exclusive: How Jay-Z Pulled Off a Surprise-Filled Show During New York’s Wildest Summer
独家：Jay-Z 如何在纽约最狂野的夏天呈现一场充满惊喜的演出
If you were, say, designing a massive concert to celebrate two of the most iconic albums in hip-hop, you might be tempted to go big: fireworks, lasers, maybe even a throne-like raised platform. 如果你要策划一场盛大的演唱会来庆祝嘻哈音乐史上两张最具标志性的专辑，你可能会忍不住想要大张旗鼓：烟花、激光，甚至是一个像宝座一样的高台。
But if you’re Willo Perron and you’re planning the anniversary shows for Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint in New York City, the instinct is to go the other way. Keep it simple. One of the greatest rappers of all time doesn’t need theatrics. 但如果你是 Willo Perron，正在为 Jay-Z 的《Reasonable Doubt》和《The Blueprint》在纽约市的周年纪念演出做规划，你的直觉会告诉你反其道而行之。保持简洁。这位史上最伟大的说唱歌手之一并不需要花哨的舞台效果。
“I think the statement piece in a Jay-Z show is Jay-Z,” Perron tells me. “This is more about storytelling than it is about stage design.” “我认为 Jay-Z 演唱会的核心就是 Jay-Z 本人，”Perron 告诉我。“这更多是关于叙事，而不是舞台设计。”
Jay-Z’s show at Yankee Stadium featured a 2,952-square-foot outfield-spanning screen. Photograph: Darrell Jackson Jay-Z 在洋基体育场的演出配备了一块横跨外野、面积达 2952 平方英尺的巨型屏幕。摄影：Darrell Jackson
On Friday, when Hov took the stage at Yankee Stadium in front of some 45,000 people, that proved true. He barreled through two hours of hits on a bare stage backlit by a massive 2,952-square-foot outfield-spanning screen showing images from his early days in New York. 周五，当 Jay-Z 在洋基体育场面对约 4.5 万名观众登台时，这一点得到了印证。他在一个空旷的舞台上完成了两小时的热门金曲串烧，背景是一块横跨外野、面积达 2952 平方英尺的巨型屏幕，播放着他早年在纽约生活的影像。
Accompanied by a 10-person band and an 18-piece string section, he performed hits like “Can’t Knock the Hustle” with his wife Beyoncé singing the chorus originally performed by Mary J. Blige and “Dead Presidents,” alongside Nas whose “The World Is Yours” the song sampled a version of. 在 10 人乐队和 18 人弦乐团的伴奏下，他演唱了《Can’t Knock the Hustle》等金曲，并由妻子碧昂丝（Beyoncé）演唱了原版中由 Mary J. Blige 负责的副歌；他还与 Nas 同台表演了《Dead Presidents》，该曲曾采样过 Nas 的《The World Is Yours》。
The moments fans posted on social media or shared with their friends didn’t involve elaborate props or costumes; it was just Jay-Z and the guests—his daughter Blue Ivy Carter (she played keys on “Feelin’ It”), his mentor Jaz-O—he brought out to surprise them. 粉丝们在社交媒体上发布或与朋友分享的精彩瞬间，并没有复杂的道具或服装；只有 Jay-Z 和他带来的惊喜嘉宾——他的女儿 Blue Ivy Carter（她在《Feelin’ It》中弹奏了键盘）以及他的导师 Jaz-O。
That’s the way it is when one of the artists most identified with New York plays his hometown. Jay-Z’s mini-residency was originally planned as just two shows—Friday’s, honoring 1996’s Reasonable Doubt, and Saturday’s, celebrating 2001’s The Blueprint—but a third Sunday show, dubbed “Extra Innings,” got added after the first two quickly sold out. 当一位最具纽约代表性的艺术家在自己的家乡演出时，情况就是如此。Jay-Z 的这次小型驻场演出最初只计划了两场——周五纪念 1996 年的《Reasonable Doubt》，周六庆祝 2001 年的《The Blueprint》——但在前两场门票迅速售罄后，又增加了一场名为“延长赛”（Extra Innings）的周日演出。
“The tickets sold as quickly for this event as any that I’ve ever seen,” says Scott Krug, the Yankees’ chief financial officer. “这场活动的门票销售速度是我见过最快的，”洋基队首席财务官 Scott Krug 说道。
Jay-Z’s return to the New York stage is also the latest in a series of culturally significant moments in the city: the World Cup, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks weren’t even in the playoffs when Jay-Z originally announced the hometown shows; in the interim they won the NBA championship, and the rapper’s “Empire State of Mind”—alongside Frank Sinatra’s cover of “Theme From New York, New York”—became an anthem of their victory. That made the already high expectations for this weekend’s events even higher. Jay-Z 重返纽约舞台，也是这座城市近期一系列具有文化意义的重大事件之一：世界杯、泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）与特拉维斯·凯尔西（Travis Kelce）在麦迪逊广场花园的婚礼。当 Jay-Z 最初宣布家乡演出时，尼克斯队甚至还没进入季后赛；而在筹备期间，他们赢得了 NBA 总冠军，这位说唱歌手的《Empire State of Mind》——与弗兰克·辛纳屈（Frank Sinatra）翻唱的《Theme From New York, New York》一起——成为了他们的夺冠赞歌。这使得本周末活动的预期变得更高了。
Not that the show wasn’t huge; it was just not, in Perron’s words, “ostentatious.” One of the stage setup’s key features was a set of bleachers on each side of the stage for hardcore fans to watch up close, evoking Jay-Z’s early days playing in iconic New York clubs like The Tunnel. 并不是说演出规模不大，只是用 Perron 的话来说，它并不“浮夸”。舞台设置的一个关键特色是在舞台两侧设置了看台，让铁杆粉丝可以近距离观看，这让人回想起 Jay-Z 早年在 The Tunnel 等纽约标志性俱乐部演出的日子。
“Jay-Z sent me a video of an older concert, and I think the way that the stage was located, he was like, ‘Oh, it’s cool. People look like they’re onstage,’” Perron says. “And I was like, ‘We should maybe just put people on stage.’” “Jay-Z 发给我一段他早期演唱会的视频，当时舞台的位置让他觉得，‘哦，这很酷。人们看起来就像在舞台上一样，’”Perron 说。“于是我说，‘也许我们真的应该把观众请上台。’”
Photograph: Darrell Jackson 摄影：Darrell Jackson
Despite his commitment to a stripped-down aesthetic for the shows, Perron admits he’s aware that every minute will be captured by smartphones and broadcast on Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms. He previously designed staging for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour and smiles in acknowledgement when I mention how frequently the “flying” car and floating horseshoe set pieces from that tour found their way into my social media feeds. 尽管他致力于为演出打造一种极简美学，但 Perron 承认他很清楚每一分钟都会被智能手机捕捉，并传播到 Instagram、TikTok 等平台上。他曾为碧昂丝的《Cowboy Carter》巡演设计过舞台，当我提到那次巡演中“飞行”汽车和悬浮马蹄铁装置在我的社交媒体动态中出现频率有多高时，他会心地笑了。
Trying to design a show just for the ’gram “has really hindered good shows,” he says, adding that the last time Jay-Z performed, when he headlined the Roots Picnic in May, one of the most viral moments was his nearly four minute freestyle. 他表示，试图仅仅为了“发 Instagram”而设计演出“实际上阻碍了优秀演出的呈现”。他补充说，Jay-Z 上次演出是在五月份领衔 Roots Picnic 时，当时最火的片段之一是他近四分钟的即兴说唱。
Also attention-grabbing: bringing out Beyoncé for the opening song and following her with one surprise performer after another. The day before the show, I met up with Krug at Yankee Stadium to talk about the logistics of putting on three major concerts in the middle of his team’s 2026 season. The stadium, he noted, is surrounded by city streets, and doesn’t have a massive parking lot where crews can stash equipment before loading it in. When they started setting up the show on Monday, the arrival of each part of the stage had to be meticulously planned so that another delivery truck was ready as soon as the previous one left. 同样引人注目的还有：开场曲请出碧昂丝，随后惊喜嘉宾接连登场。演出前一天，我在洋基体育场见到了 Krug，讨论在 2026 赛季中期举办三场大型演唱会的后勤工作。他指出，体育场被城市街道环绕，没有巨大的停车场供工作人员在装载前存放设备。当他们周一着手搭建舞台时，每一部分舞台组件的抵达都必须经过精心规划，确保前一辆货车离开后，下一辆能立即跟上。
Special guests for the show get in much the same way. “We work with artist security to make sure that we can find an appropriate way for those people to get in, without them having any sort of issues,” Krug says, noting that the Yankees often have celebrity guests to sneak in. “That’s something we do all the time.” 演出的特别嘉宾也是以同样的方式入场。“我们与艺人的安保团队合作，确保找到合适的方式让他们进入，且不会出现任何问题，”Krug 说，并提到洋基队经常有明星嘉宾需要“潜入”。“这是我们经常做的事情。”
Because the concerts are taking place during the baseball season, nothing was allowed on the diamond itself. Perron turned that bug into a feature by covering the area in a vinyl-mesh cover that doubled as a projection screen onto which additional footage and images could be displayed. During Friday’s show, it featured a live feed of Jay-Z’s performance. The staging will be the same for the shows on Saturday and Sunday, Perron says, but the set lists and footage will be different. 由于演唱会是在棒球赛季期间举行，内场（钻石区）严禁放置任何东西。Perron 将这一限制转化为特色，用乙烯基网罩覆盖了该区域，并将其作为投影屏幕，用于展示额外的影像和图片。在周五的演出中，上面播放了 Jay-Z 表演的实时画面。Perron 表示，周六和周日的舞台设置将保持不变，但歌单和影像内容会有所不同。
Protecting the 3-acre field was of utmost importance to the Yankees. The team will host the Los Angeles Dodgers next Friday, and the “sacred” ground has to be just as it was before Jay-Z rolled through, says Krug. During the setup and execution of the shows, no vehicles are allowed on the diamond, and the parts of the stadium with seating—the outfield—have been covered in polypropylene panels that are flat on the underside so they won’t dig into the Kentucky bluegrass below. 保护这片 3 英亩的场地对洋基队来说至关重要。Krug 说，球队下周五将迎战洛杉矶道奇队，这片“神圣”的土地必须恢复到 Jay-Z 到来之前的原样。在演出搭建和进行期间，严禁车辆进入内场，而体育场的座位区（外野）则覆盖了聚丙烯板，其底部平整，不会损坏下方的肯塔基蓝草草坪。
“At the end of the day, our responsibility, our primary responsibility, is for baseball,” Krug says. “So when the team comes back next Friday, we have to make sure that the playing field is in the best possible condition.” “归根结底，我们的责任，我们的首要责任，是棒球，”Krug 说。“所以当球队下周五回来时，我们必须确保比赛场地处于最佳状态。”