Jay-Z brought out Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams at his Paris show on Thursday night, in front of a Stade de France crowd he counted himself from the stage. “Wow! I want to thank you tonight. We got 75,000 people in here tonight,” he told them.
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The show was part of JAŸ-Z 30, the run of anniversary concerts celebrating three decades since Reasonable Doubt. He walked out around 9:16 p.m. local time in the Yankees fitted and shades, took in the noise, and said “Oh, it’s going to be one of those nights?!” It was his first time performing at that stadium since 2018.Pharrell came out first. The two of them ran through a stretch of the catalog they built together, including “Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)” and “Excuse Me Miss,” which is a reminder that the Neptunes fingerprints are all over a certain era of Jay’s run. Pharrell had already popped out at the New York anniversary shows earlier this summer, so the Paris appearance made it two for two.
Then came Justin Timberlake. He walked out midway through the night for “Holy Grail,” the opening track from Magna Carta Holy Grail, and the entrance got the dramatic backlit treatment that Roc Nation posted afterward. Jay-Z let the moment sit and then said, “It’s Justin, make some noise.” Timberlake stuck around after that and performed “Until the End of Time,” his 2006 duet with Beyoncé from the deluxe edition of FutureSex/LoveSounds, and the stadium turned it into a singalong.
That is a specific choice worth sitting with. Timberlake did not pick one of his own bigger solo singles. He picked the one that belongs to him and Beyoncé, sang it in her husband’s stadium, and let 75,000 people carry the rest.
The Paris date fits into a year Jay-Z has spent going back through his own catalog on purpose. The July 11 show in New York was built around The Blueprint and brought out Eminem, Slick Rick and Pharrell. The EXTRA INNINGS show the following night pulled in Rihanna, Swizz Beatz, Jeezy, Fat Joe and Beyoncé. Paris was the only anniversary show in France, and the run closes with two nights at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on October 23 and 24.
Blue Ivy and Rumi were spotted shopping in Paris earlier that day, and at least one outlet reported that Beyoncé and Blue Ivy turned up during the show itself. That has not been confirmed with official photos or video, and most of the outlets covering the night did not mention it, so treat it as a maybe until something surfaces.
