Watch Unearthed Footage Of Jay-Z’s Legendary 2001 Hot 97 Summer Jam Performance

Watch Unearthed Footage Of Jay-Z’s Legendary 2001 Hot 97 Summer Jam Performance

Jay-Z’s performance at the 2001 edition of the annual hip-hop mega-concert Hot 97 Summer Jam is legendary. My colleague Tom Breihan once declared it the most contentious moment in Summer Jam history. For the first time in 21 years, footage of that full set is circulating online.

The show took place June 28, 2001 at Nassau Coliseum, with a stacked bill also featuring Destiny’s Child, OutKast, Ludacris, Eve, Nelly, and more. During his headlining set, Jay famously brought Michael Jackson out on stage with him as a flex. More importantly, he debuted “Takeover,” from his then-imminent album The Blueprint. “Takeover,” which instantly became one of the most famous diss tracks in rap history, found Jay sending shots at Nas, which inspired the insane rebuttal “Ether.” But a lot of the venom on “Takeover” is directed at Mobb Deep, a hostility that extended to Jay’s stage show. While performing the song, Jay filled the Jumbotron with photos of Mobb Deep member Prodigy at a dance class as a child, a perceived humiliation that derailed Prodigy’s career for some time.

Audio from this gig has been available online for years, but there hasn’t been video until today, when an account called HipHopVCR posted the whole thing. It’s 57 minutes long, and key excerpts are leaking out into Twitter as we speak. Behold it all below.

https://twitter.com/theDYNAMICS/status/1513971461874143239

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