{"id":706422,"date":"2026-05-31T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/706422\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:20:08","slug":"heres-what-went-down-at-jay-zs-headlining-roots-picnic-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/706422\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s What Went Down at Jay-Z\u2019s Headlining Roots Picnic Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay-Z<\/a> headlined Philadelphia\u2019s annual Roots Picnic<\/a> on Saturday (March 30), marking his first solo headlining show in over five years. The highly-anticipated set also served as a prelude to a series of forthcoming New York performances<\/a> celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut album Reasonable Doubt<\/a> and its 2001 follow-up, The Blueprint<\/a>. Watch footage from the performance, and a full set list, below.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the 90-minute set, Jay-Z performed 30-plus songs from across catalog, showing love to big hits (\u201cDirt Off Your Shoulders,\u201d \u201cEmpire State of Mind,\u201d \u201cRun This Town,\u201d \u201cN*gga\u2019s In Paris\u201d) and deeper cuts (\u201cCan I Live,\u201d \u201cMarcy Me\u201d) alike. He was backed by the Roots\u2014who he notably collaborated with on his 2001 MTV Unplugged live album\u2014and supported by a roster of guests including Jazmine Sullivan, Meek Mill (who performed his beloved Philly anthem \u201cDreams & Nightmares\u201d), and Bilal. The show also featured an unofficial State Property reunion, with Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Peedi Crakk, Memphis Bleek, and Young Gunz all hopping on the mic at various intervals.<\/p>\n

One of the night\u2019s biggest surprises came just minutes into Jay-Z\u2019s time on stage. After opening with 2002\u2019s \u201cHovi Baby,\u201d the rapper dove into a surprise four-minute freestyle, which he told the crowd he had refrained from practicing during rehearsals with the Roots. During the a capella performance, he appeared to take shots at Drake (\u201cThem crackers got your publishing checks, go talk tough to them, don\u2019t talk success to me\u201d), Nicki Minaj, and Kanye West, whom Jay-Z took to task over disparaging comments the Bully rapper made last year about Beyonc\u00e9 and Jay-Z\u2019s children. \u201cYou ever heard of wonder-kin? My children are some of them,\u201d he rapped. \u201cHave you n*ggas have no shame? You really wanna get under my skin? I\u2019ll really get under ya skin (stab).\u201d (Despite the shade, Jay-Z still performed multiple songs from his and West\u2019s joint album Watch the Throne, including \u201cNo Church in the Wild\u201d and \u201cGotta Have It.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The freestyle arrived on the heels of a recent GQ interview<\/a> wherein Jay-Z shared some thoughts on rap beef at large. He positioned beef within what he called \u201cthe four pillars of hip-hop,\u201d breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, and battling, and expressed concern over the way the modern diss track goes beyond the excitement of \u201csparring\u201d into character assassination. \u201cIt\u2019s too far. It\u2019s bringing people\u2019s kids into it. I don\u2019t like that,\u201d he said. \u201cBack then, you had the battle, it was fun, and you moved on. Now, I don\u2019t know if it can hold up with the technology we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay-Z released his most recent solo album, 4:44<\/a>, in 2017. In 2018, he also released an album with Beyonc\u00e9, Everything Is Love<\/a>, under the moniker The Carters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay-Z headlined Philadelphia\u2019s annual Roots Picnic on Saturday (March 30), marking his first solo headlining show in over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,21617,44,7604,343],"class_list":["post-706422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-jay-z","tag-news","tag-textaboveleftsmall","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}