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| by kenn on 11/15/2004 10:57:00 AM |
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Jay-Z succeeds with some talented friends
Source:philly.com
 With friends like Mary J. Blige, P. Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule, DMX, Memphis Bleek and Foxy Brown, who needs R. Kelly?
Rapper Jay-Z certainly doesn't, as he proved before a packed house at the Wachovia Center on Saturday, headlining a seamless, 21/2-hour cavalcade of hip-hop and R&B stars dubbed Jay Z and Friends.
The show was originally slated as a stop on the Best of the Both Worlds tour costarring Jay-Z and R&B lothario R. Kelly.
Then at the duo's Oct 29 show at Madison Square Garden, Kelly said he saw men waving guns at him from the crowd during his set. After bolting the stage, one of Jay-Z's associates then allegedly showered Kelly and three of his bodyguards with pepper spray.
Kelly was kicked off the tour and filed a $75 million breach-of-contract suit against Jay-Z and the tour's promoter.
But Jay-Z plowed on, with an assortment of friends appearing in various cities.
"One monkey don't stop no show," Jay-Z told the crowd, addressing the R. Kelly situation early in the evening. He'd just finished performing "99 Problems" with Memphis Bleek, and was about to surrender the stage to Busta Rhymes, whose hyper-rhyme cadence got heads bobbing and the house shaking on "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See."
The show went off like clockwork, no small feat given the circumstances. Jay-Z sprinkled hits like "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" throughout, letting Mary J. Blige take over for an incendiary, albeit truncated run through her catalog. (They got together on "Can't Knock the Hustle.")
Jay-Z also passed the mike to P. Diddy, who proved that for all his extra-curricular interests, Puffy can still rap.
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