Teyana Taylor responded to the backlash over her Yankee Stadium performance with a gratitude post and a series of rehearsal videos, and the footage said more than any comment section ever could. On Monday, a day after opening the final night of Jay-Z’s three-night residency at Yankee Stadium, she posted photos from the show alongside clips of herself rehearsing the record, and she opened her caption by naming the problem directly. The sound and her in-ears failed her. She could not hear a thing out there. What she could do was see, and what she saw was 40,000 people in the Bronx showing her love.
The performance in question was the top of “Extra Innings,” the July 12 finale of a run celebrating 30 years of Reasonable Doubt and 25 years of The Blueprint. Jay brought her out early to sing Mary J. Blige’s part on “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” The internet did what the internet does. Clips got cut, jokes got made, and the pile-on started before anyone bothered to ask what was happening in her ears. She said the gratitude was louder than any mic could ever be, and then she posted the rehearsal tapes so you could hear the work.
Fans in the building could tell in real time that her mic was not working, and they said so in the clips they posted that same night.
It also helps to understand what kind of night that was. The show was scheduled for 8 p.m. It did not start until 12:15 a.m. Crowds outside the stadium swelled, people rushed the gates, security shut all the doors, and the NYPD had to step in before anyone got trampled. The Yankees, Roc Nation and Live Nation put out a joint statement the next day about the security situation. The concert did not wrap until close to 3 a.m. Adam Blackstone, the musical co-director, later said he was backstage with Teyana Taylor, Usher and Jeezy while they were locked into their routines, tunnel vision on, with no idea of the chaos unfolding outside the walls. That is the production environment she walked into. A stadium running four hours behind schedule with a compromised perimeter is not a night where the audio is going to be pristine, and it was not.
Teyana Taylor has been in the Carter orbit since she was 15 years old, when Beyoncé asked her to help choreograph. She is a Harlem kid who has spent two decades in this industry as a dancer, a choreographer, a singer, a director and now an actress with a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination on her name. In her caption she kept calling herself that lil Harlem girl, and the point was not modesty. The point was distance. She was measuring how far she had come from the block to the middle of Yankee Stadium standing next to the GOAT, and she said Father God has a way of reminding you that you are standing inside a prayer you whispered as a child.
She thanked Jay for the trust and the honor, said she would never take a moment like that for granted, and said she will carry it forever. She tagged Blackstone and her band and her glam and the photographers. She closed by wishing a happy anniversary to the albums that changed the culture.
