Jay-Z served as the headliner for Roots Picnic on Saturday in Philadelphia, and he surprised fans with a provocative freestyle right at the get-go.
During his first headlining show in more than five years, he performed 32-songs over the course of 90 minutes and along with delivering his big hits, he also dropped disses on haters that include Drake, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj. Just minutes into his performance, he took his first apparent shot: Following 2002’s “Hovi Baby,” he dropped a four-minute freestyle. Performing acappella, he seemingly went off on Drake, addressing his Iceman song “Janice STFU.” Jay-Z clapped back:
“The jig is up/We got up 10/wrong chart champ/You gotta look up again/Niggas look up to Hov/ I never looked up to them! Them crackers got your publishing gangsta, go talk tough to them, don’t talk success to me, You niggas is workers, in perpetuity is how your contract is worded/Don’t make me go further, man.”
Jay-Z’s bars appeared to get at KanYe previously making derogatory comments about Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s children:
“You ever heard of wonder-kin? My children are some of them, Have you niggas have no shame? You trying to get under skin? I’ll really get under skin.”
But the most personal bar comes on “Whisper My Name,” where Drake says, “I take 500K, not a dinner, I never could learn shit from none of y’all,” a direct reference to the famous debate about whether you’d take half a million dollars or have dinner with Jay-Z. Hov responded to that with some clever word play that worked in his billionaire status, and one of his wife Beyoncé’s best known hits with Destiny’s Child.
The timing of Jay-Z’s new look and his freestyle at the Roots Picnic feels intentional, especially considering he’s also rebranding himself as JAŸ-Z, taking it back to his 90s aesthetic.