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"FacebookPinterest\n\n When Daniel Felsenfeld, a Brooklyn-based modern-classical composer, answered the phone on January 19, a voice on the other end said simply: \"Ahmir said you're the man.\" \"Ahmir\" was Ahmir \"?uestlove\" Thompson: Felsenfeld had met Thompson only recently, at a one-off string-arranging gig for The Roots. The voice was Adam Blackstone, musical director for Jill Scott, The Roots, and many others. Blackstone, it turned out, needed orchestral parts drawn up for a high-profile client. The turnaround time was fairly tight: about two weeks. The client? Jay-Z.\n\n This nerve-rattling, curious phone call was just one cog in the great machine that fired to life the moment that Jay-Z announced, in early December, two consecutive performances at Carnegie Hall. The concert was billed as a fundraiser for Jay-Z's non-profit, the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation and the United Way of New York City, but anyone engaged in a close Jay-Z study could sniff out another motive. Ever since his false-start retirement post-The Black Album, Shawn Carter has been searching for an opposing force. In rap, there was nothing left to conquer: as he rose higher, meaningful competition grew scarce and finally disappeared. When guys like Jim Jones took shots at him, it was more in the spirit of high schoolers clowning the principal than any kind of rap battle. There were no stakes left, no victories remaining. Hova the God was safely in the sky.\n\n So he trained his gaze towards conquering the oldest, whitest, richest precincts in the world, the last few places on earth where he might receive a less-than-rapturous welcome. As he discovered at least one more room in which he felt, at least temporarily, like the underdog, Jay-Z's post-retirement career began taking shape. His most resonant writing of the last few years has come from this place: his \"Most Kingz\" freestyle, for instance (\"Media meddles/Niggas sue you, you settle/Every step you take, they remind you you ghetto\") or the sharp loneliness of Watch the Throne's \"Murder To Excellence\" (\"Only spot a few blacks the higher I go\"). His material boasts were upgraded from Rolex and Prada to Audemars Piguet and Le Meurice. He rapped about art collecting. During the book tour for his best-selling memoir, Decoded, he infiltrated the New York Public Library, NPR, and Charlie Rose. He even got Oprah to call herself \"close-minded\" and apologize for her remarks about hip-hop. In all this, he seemed revitalized, blessed with a renewed sense of focus. He had found somewhere he still had to take hip-hop.\n\n It was this spirit that led to Jay-Z's two-night engagement, with a full orchestra, at Carnegie Hall. The temple of high culture and old money was one of the very last places where his old lyric \"The whole industry could hate me, I thug my way through it\" might still carry force. What happened in the wake of Hova's announcement is a fascinating socio-cultural experiment conducted at frantic high-speed, with the screaming-adrenaline boost that only Big Money can provide. And Felsenfeld, whose own personal tastes ran more toward Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, and Stravinsky found himself swept up in the Hova Tornado.\n\n \"The task was definitely daunting, especially since, to be honest, it was not music to which I was exactly native,\" Felsenfeld said. \"There was certainly some cramming. But the orchestra was top-drawer, and extremely resourceful. The harpist showed me how she'd figured out a way to recreate the bent notes from one of the sample sources. I thought it was ingenious.\"\n\n Felsenfeld arranged 28-plus songs, most of which made their way through to the final set list. His most significant contribution was a chunk of orchestra at the outset, for which he received the instruction \"write some very dark string music.\" \n\n \"Ahmir played me a bunch of stuff he specifically wanted it to sound like,\" Felsenfeld says, \"like the Jimmy Castor Bunch. So I started with that\u2014there were also a lot of little nested Jay-Z quotes in there from 'Song Cry'. It ended up sounding more like Jimmy Castor-meets-Bernard Hermann.\"\n\n When Jay-Z arrived at rehearsals, three days into the process, \"the orchestra sounded unbelievably phenomenal,\" Felsenfeld said. \"They obviously sounded great before, but you know that thing where an incredibly famous person walks into the room, and the air changes around them? That's what happened.\" He adds, \"It was pretty dazzling to hear Jay-Z rap the whole set ten feet from me\u2014to hear him without even the benefit of a microphone. Very special.\"\n\n\u00B7\u00B7\u00B7\n\n In terms of typical Carnegie Hall fare and other bastions of High Culture, Jay-Z already has them beat in at least one respect: tickets for this event are prohibitively, insanely expensive. They are so expensive, in fact, that I have a hard time imagining what sorts of private citizens, other than journalists, will be present at this concert.\n\n As I approach Carnegie Hall, I suffer briefly from the conviction that I will endure the humiliation of showing up to a black-tie event dressed like a music writer: jeans, scuffed shoes, a zip-up sweater. But my fears are assuaged upon entering the bar, which seems to be patronized entirely by Roc Nation's HR department: scores of young kids, dressed in polo shirts, knocking back Prosecco and hugely grinning at everyone. It occurs to me that this crowd is what a walking, talking tax break looks like. There are expensive-looking men and women milling about, of course, but no more so that at an average New York Philharmonic subscription concert. Relieved, I make my way out to the auditorium.\n\n To my amazement, I find I am seated in the fourth row from the front. The price on my ticket says \"$1,250.\" As I sit, I try to will away the air of \"Make-A-Wish Foundation recipient\" I imagine to be settling around me. I half-expect to glance over and discover Gwyneth Paltrow seated to my right. I see kids around me, mostly: two rows back, there are four boys, median age eleven, who are squirming in their seats with the abstracted air of someone waiting for a movie to start. I scan their baby faces for some sense that they are incredulous to be here, that they are feeling the charge of the Moment. I find none.\n\n As I scan the crowd, its fascinating oddness becomes increasingly apparent: there is a fortyish black women sitting in front of me, evidently alone. She is seated next to two oafish, slick-haired white gentlemen in tus. Behind me, a man leans over to explain to his confused seatmate why an orchestra is taking their seats and tuning up: \"This is a proper concert, you see. This is Jay-Z and the New York Philharmonic.\" (It is not.) In the first and second-tier balconies, I can see the people who swallowed hard and shelled out for the nosebleeds: junior-level business guys, twentysomething girls, men in Yankee fitted hats. This is what it looks like, apparently, when you bring hip-hop into Carnegie Hall\u2014for a minimum of $500 a seat.\n\n When the lights go down, and Felsenfeld's introductory section begins, we could, for a moment, actually be at a traditional orchestra concert. There are some soft, dry tremolos in the violins; then barbed, spiky string harmonies, rich with little semitone dissonances, tug the air. Soon though, a familiar, bass-heavy piano line booms up from the center, and there is a very un-Carnegie roar as the crowd recognizes the opening notes of \"P.S.A.\" Jay-Z appears, wearing a Gatsby-esque white tux with black bow tie and shades, gripping a bottle of Ace of Spades, grinning from ear to ear. It is a spectacular entrance.\n\n For the entire night, he wears this grin\u2014for a guy noted mostly for his Olympian emotional reserve, Jay-Z seems unable to contain his delight tonight. \"Are you guys having fun tonight? Because I'm having a ball up here,\" he says, and it sounds very much like he means it. After \"P.S.A.\", The Blueprint 3's \"Thank You\" has a dinner-club charm in this setting; Jay gestures impishly at the bos during the \"balcony, opera\" line. After \"Thank You,\" however, he doesn't waste any more time hitting his Big Message: \"We're gonna step on all the lines that separate all types of music,\" he says. \"We have this beautiful orchestra here\u2026hip-hop, jazz\u2026all those lines that divide us, we gonna step on 'em.\"\n\n The rest of the night is half Jay-Z Greatest Hits Parade, half Hip-Hop Takes Over Carnegie demonstration. Like any big Jay-Z concert, this one is packed with surefire, crowd-goes-apeshit moments: after a brief and slightly pedantic NY-themed medley of Billy Joel's \"New York State of Mind,\" Frank Sinatra's \"New York, New York,\" and Gil Scott-Heron's \"New York Is Killing Me\" that reads a lot more interesting than it plays, Jay fires up \"Empire State of Mind\" and brings out Alicia Keys, who tears the chorus down completely. Then, Nas emerges and rips through \"NY State of Mind\" and \"If I Ruled the World\" in a husky, slightly breathless baritone. Also, as with any other Big Jay-Z Event Concert, there are smart, thoughtful enlivening touches\u2014Easter Eggs for fans. The orchestra transitions into four bars of Biggie's \"Me and My Bitch\" during \"Song Cry\" when Jay mentions the song. \"U Don't Know\" melts into a brief quote from \"Superfly.\" A few notes of \"Deep Cover\" poke out through \"On To the Next One.\" It is a great set list, a series of peaks that Jay has refined through touring to a narcotic strength, and it also includes, near the end, the very first performance of \"Glory,\" Jay-Z's disarming dedication to his newborn daughter, Blue Ivy. \"I almost didn't get through that one,\" he admits afterwards.\n\n But there is something more interesting going on behind the concert's face; Jay is palpably pushing on something in the air. After ripping through \"99 Problems,\" he addresses the doubt that he would include the song in his set list: \"There goes that rumor.\" As the evening progresses, he transitions from white tux to black. Then, at the evening's very end, he re-emerges, puckish, wearing a black tee, Yankee fitted, and a big fat sparkling gold chain. He exhorts us to flood the aisles: \"We've gotta turn this into a party in here; we didn't come here for nothing.\" He then proceeds to plow joyfully through the most flagrantly street anthems of his career: \"Jigga My Nigga.\" \"Nigga What Nigga Who.\" \"Big Pimpin.\" He stops the music to make the crowd chant along to Pimp C's verse. (I am the only person in row four who knows all the words to Pimp C's verse.) He says \"Put two fingers in the air for Pimp C,\" and you can almost hear him reveling in the unlikely sound these words make in this hall.\n\n But Jay-Z is not done making his point. After his \"official\" farewell\u2014a big, wet, sloppy kiss in the form of \"Forever Young,\" unquestionably the worst song in his catalog\u2014he returns. \"I want to go up there,\" he says, pointing up to the very top balconies. Security guards' faces drain simultaneously. \"I'm coming up top.\" And just like that, he disappears, only to reappear standing on a chair in the first balcony, his arm resting on the shoulder of the most visibly thrilled audience member in history, as he exhorts his DJ to pull up old classics on the fly. I confirm, after the show with Felsenfeld, that he had no idea any of this was planned.\n\n Uncertainly perched, Jay-Z raps the first verse of \"So Ghetto\" (\"So I'm cruisin in the car with this bougie broad/She like 'Jigga man, you rich, take the doo rag off\"). He actually throws out \"Money, Cash, Hoes.\" He cues up \"Can't Knock The Hustle and a cluster of fans, much smaller than those who knew all the lyrics to \"Empire State of Mind,\" but twice as fervent, scream every word along with him. Finally, Jay-Z drops down, satisfied, and disappears for the evening.\n\n Set List:\n\n \"P.S.A.\"\n\n \"Thank You\"\n\n \"Most Kings\" Freestyle\n\n \"U Don't Know\"\n\n Billy Joel's \"New York State of Mind\"\n\n Frank Sinatra's \"New York, New York\"\n\n Gil Scott-Heron's \"New York Is Killing Me\"\n\n \"Empire State of Mind\" featuring Alicia Keys\n\n \"NY State of Mind\" (Nas)\n\n \"If I Ruled The World\" (Nas)\n\n \"Run This Town\"\n\n \"Roc Boys\"\n\n \"Dirt off Your Shoulder\"\n\n \"I Just Wanna Love U (Give It To Me)\"\n\n \"On To the Next One\"\n\n \"Where I'm From\"\n\n \"Hard Knock Life\"\n\n \"Izzo (H.O.V.A.)\"\n\n \"99 Problems\"\n\n \"Girls, Girls, Girls\"\n\n \"Song Cry\"\n\n \"Glory\"\n\n Encore:\n\n \"Jigga My Nigga\"\n\n \"Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator 99)\"\n\n \"Big Pimpin'\"\n\n \"Forever Young\"\n\n \"So Ghetto\"\n\n \"Money, Cash, Hoes\"\n\n \"Can't Knock The Hustle\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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