With his stock is rising again in celebration of thirty years of his career and two of his seminal albums, 1996's Reasonable Doubt and 2001's The Blueprint. But perhaps most telling of his place in culture is the noise around guests expected this evening.
As the crowds descend upon Tottenham for the first night of his two-night UK run, and his first proper, solo headline show since 2013 at The O2, the buzz is around the guests - it's got to be Beyoncé? Perhaps Rihanna. But that's where the disservice comes into play.
At 7:30 the warm up DJ hits the stage. Most certainly getting the memo that this is a celebration by playing modern hip-hop's greatest hits, as the London sun begins to set, the hype is well and truly swelling as the stadium continues to pack out.
It's not until just a little over an hour later that the HOV celebration begins. Hip-hop lover and Hollywood actor Idris Elba takes to the stage meanly spitting bars, clad in sunglasses and a ridiculously charismatic aura, fabulously hyping Jay-Z who appears atop a pyramid hosting his band. As he descends while performing the American Gangster deep cut, "Pray", this is the warning point for those locked in, ready to expand their TikTok reach with a quick glimpse at other than HOV.
From here on, it becomes an especially earnest recognition of the man who became hip-hop's first billionaire. The set is rife with deep cuts, and for the most part it's just Jay-Z and his band sharing the gargantuan stage. While he cuts a mean silhouette, this is the most human this mogul has been seen in decades - including later on and a brief entanglement with his in-ear monitor during a clothing change.
Even the three-night run earlier this year in his hometown of New York felt like it was already mythological. Yet here, on his home-away-from-home turf, the Shawn Carter who fought his way out from Marcy, son, and went on to become a kingpin in the rap game for three decades - and rising - is somewhat grounded.
Indeed as it should be, this is Jay's night, and as he rolls into a three-punch knockout of 4:44's "Bam", Vol. 3's "Jigga My N**ga, and The Blueprint’s "Izzo (H.O.V.A)", it's a reminder of how he got to be here in the first place.
As expected, the global powerhouse pop hits are present ("Empire State of Mind", "Run This Town"), latter-day cuts ("fuckwithmeyouknowigotit"). While these are still impressive, especially when they swallow you whole thanks to the gargantuan sound system, it's the deeper numbers that hoist tonight a loft.
His 1996 debut single, the Nas-sampling "Dead Presidents" packs a punch with its lofty piano line. With many of these tracks only having been performed live a handful of times over his career, it's a relative dig through his treasure trove of a back catalogue. "N***a What, N***a Who" is dusted off for the first time in two decades. The lover-boy version of Jay is out in force too, with a mashup of "Girls, Girls, Girls" and "03' Bonnie and Clyde", and then a medley of "Excuse Me Miss", "La-La-La", and "I Just Want To Love You (Give It To Me)".
The encore later is another straight knockout round, with the bone-marrow-shaking "N***as In Paris", "Public Service Announcement", "Big Pimpin'", before closing out the event with his 00s-defining collaboration with Linkin Park, "Numb / Encore". But it's that first encore number that troubles the mind. Currently, over in Chicago, Kanye West is performing his own series of celebratory shows as he seeks redemption for his villainous arc. While a sad state of affairs, Jay is undoubtedly on the right side of history in removing Ye from his life.
Today also, for better or worse, marks Beyoncé's birthday. This did not help expectations. But this is quelled after an hour or so when he gets the crowd to launch into a happy birthday singalong to his wife who is presently up in a box, looking down on her husband - the furthest from the stage possible. "Ya’ll not going to make her perform on her birthday, right" Jay-Z jokes, but the chilling truth is, yes, they would. And as the large arsenal of fireworks crescendo into the night, it's back to proceedings.
The guest spots aren't totally forgotten however. First up, he brings Giggs out. With this, another humbling moment manifests for the rap game as Giggs is visibly in awe of sharing the stage with an undoubted icon while performing his own "Talkin The Hardest".
Perhaps even more humbling, after Jay's homage to New York a few songs later the Fugees' Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill appear for a run-through of a few of their own greatest hits. It's a relatively fine showing. Hill's voice is fairly shot so she's unable to deliver the iconic choruses, but, when Jay-Z reappears, he mentions the Fugees were the first to ever take him on tour to Europe, which takes it from an OK appearance to a key part of this celebration. (We shall not discuss the unnecessary, albeit brief, appearance of DJ Khaled).
These spots aside, this is the ideal scenario to witness the self-professed greatest to ever do it. One man, with an aura around him that, as he swaps coats and outfits, is unmistakable. And tonight he wants to prove he's still the HOV who skyrocketed to the top of the zeitgeist on the back of a 90s/00s album run that culminated in his own farewell (narrator: he did not remain gone for long).
The glitz and glamour, the bombast, is all present but only just. The inhumanly large screen scaling the breadth of Tottenham stadium, occasional bursts of pyro, and an actual helicopter hovering above the stadium and shining its spotlight around the crowd – during a blackout moment for "99 Problems", which still hits like an adrenaline shot to the heart – as stadium shows go, it's relatively stripped back. The stage and its inhabitants could be transported to any of the smaller venues in the surrounding area and Jay would still be Jay, and is the crux of tonight.
He's still got it. He's older, filthy rich, but he's still that kid who first came to the UK in 1989, he's still that ambitious young man who released in 1996, with ambitions of taking over the world. And for better or worse, he"s still that billionaire mogul that people now expect to have a caravan of guests spill out on the stage. But this is his town tonight, he's gonna run it.