SimplyAbuDhabi XII

7 0 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Struggling against the impoverishment and limited opportunities of his environment, Jay Z immersed himself in the underground world of rap and hip hop and got his first break appearing on Jay-O recordings. These first steps were soon followed by Jay Z winning several MC battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early '90s, which subsequently resulted in his first record deal. Since then he has sold an astonishing 50 million albums, won 14 Grammy awards, amassed a personal fortune of approximately half a billion dollars and married global superstar Beyonce Knowles. It’s a fascinating tale of success against the odds, by anyone’s standards. It was during the fifth game of the 2013 NBA basketball finals that Carter announced his twelfth studio album would be entitled ‘Magna Carta’... Holy Grail. Released over the summer, the critically acclaimed album features collaborations with renowned hip hop artists such as Drake, Nas, and former boy band star Justin Timberlake. Bringing the hits from this last album together with a long list of smash hits spanning his entire career, Jay Z graced the stage of the Du Arena at Yas Island for an F1 after-race show in Abu Dhabi. Travelling with his backing band and bolstered by production support from hip hop superstar Timbaland, the show – part of his first soloworld tour in over three years – was a high impact performance with plenty of highlights. Jay Z kicked off proceedings as he intended to continue them, swaggering onto the stage and launching into a blistering rendition of ‘UDon't Know’. There was little in the way of stage theatricals and pyrotechnics… Jay Z displaying his ferocious confidence by relying on the spectacle of his music and rapping rather than showy distractions. And the energy was there from the outset, the capacity crowd hanging onto his every rhyme. The next song was mined from 2009’s ‘The Blueprint 3’ album, the Grammy- awardwinning and appropriately named ‘OnToTheNext One’. Prowling across