"I will not lose ever," declared Jay Z during "U Don't Know," the opening song of his 100-minute show Thursday at a packed United Center. The rapper treated the statement not as a defiant boast but as an ironclad certainty, dramatically pausing between each word. In Jay Z's eyes, the manifesto doubled as an affirmation he sought to renew almost every chance he got. Playing up his larger-than-life personality, the 44-year-old emerged as both an authoritative artist and a stylized name brand.
Seemingly impervious to trends, the hip-hop kingpin is proof of the potential behind an age-old idea: If you believe in something strongly enough, it can become reality. For Jay Z, unwavering fame and world domination are truths, not fantasies. He recently escaped relatively unscathed from controversy stemming from his collaboration with Barneys New York after the high-end retailer was accused of racial profiling. He's also avoided punishment in a situation related to his sports agency.
Then again, as he informed the crowd, he's so rich, monetary fines don't faze him -- he's the equivalent of a conglomerate immune to slap-on-the-wrist financial penalties. Reveling in such untouchable status, the mogul instructed fans to do whatever they wanted. Who was going to stop him?
Indeed, whereas Jay Z shared the stage and setlist with Justin Timberlake last summer at Soldier Field, this night belonged to him. Backed by a quartet that included hit-making producer Timbaland, Jay Z stripped his music down and specialized in cool, commanding deliveries. Minimalism defined his arrangements and appearance. Dressed in black, he prowled around with confident poise, legs and knees slowly bouncing as if equipped with lowrider springs and shock absorbers. Nothing, save for the lyrical assertions, reeked of extravagance or exaggeration.
Similarly measured, Jay Z dropped rhymes with effortless fluency, altering his flow as smoothly as he transitioned from one recognizable track to another. "I got a million of these, I tell ya!" he gloated while beginning "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)." It wasn't certain if the impresario was referring to beats, singles or verses. Not that the distinction mattered.
Exerting Simon Says-like control, Jay Z teased with a handful of rapid-fire a capella lines and, on "Somewhereinamerica," appeared to laugh at how easy everything comes to him. To further magnify his presence, he remained on an elevated platform that forced several video cameras to shoot him from the torso up-a fitting visual strategy for a rapper who advertised his supremacy by referring to himself as a king and a god.
Yet even royalty is subject to weaknesses. A mid-concert interlude killed momentum, and the soft "Young Forever" evoked mawkish hair-metal power ballads. And while Jay Z invested greater intensity in newer material from his "Magna Carta Holy Grail" album than he does on record, it wasn't enough to offset empty fare such as "Picasso Baby" and "Tom Ford." Such self-congratulatory advertisements are better suited for posting on Instagram or in luxury-lifestyle magazines.