JAY-Z turned the first London stop of his JAŸ-Z30 tour into a birthday celebration for his wife, Beyoncé, who was marking her 45th birthday from a VIP suite.
On Friday (September 24), Bey spent her special day at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, watching from the stands as the 25-time Grammy winner celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, the 25th anniversary of The Blueprint and other classic material.
“It’s a young lady’s birthday,” Jay-Z told the crowd during his set, joking that they wanted Beyoncé to perform on her birthday.
The Brooklyn native also noted that the week marked the 20th anniversary of Beyoncé’s second solo album, B’Day, before asking fans to join him in celebrating his wife with a birthday song.
“The only thing I’m gonna ask you for tonight is if we can all just sing happy birthday to her. Just really quickly,” he said.
As the crowd sang, Beyoncé appeared on the stadium’s jumbotrons wearing a hoodie, blowing kisses and waving alongside friends and her security guard, Julius.
The concert marked JAY-Z’s first solo headline show in the U.K. in more than a decade, following his last appearance at The O2 in October 2013 during the Magna Carta World Tour. In July, Hov also performed a three-night residency at Yankee Stadium.
Idris Elba opened the show with the spoken intro from Jay-Z’s American Gangster album. DJ Khaled and British rapper Giggs also joined Hov onstage, but the biggest surprise came when Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean reunited as the Fugees, performing their timeless anthems “Ready or Not,” “Killing Me Softly,” and “Fu-Gee-La.”
JAY-Z returns to the London stadium Saturday (September 5) before heading to Paris’s Stade de France on September 10. He will close out the run with two shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on October 23 and 24.
