Jay-Z, We Need You Back Outside
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If you ask only Rap Twitter, 2025 will go down in history as Jay-Z’s most productive year musically since 2018. That was the last time he toured, alongside Beyoncé, supporting the collab album they dropped that same summer. Since then he played Ghostface to Jay Electronica’s Raekwon on Elect’s somehow criminally underrated A Written Testimony album, and sprinkled a few guest verses here and there. But we’re quietly approaching a desert of Jigga Musical Activity not seen since that excruciating stretch between MCHG (2013) and 4:44 (2017). Which is why you can kind of forgive music fans for enabling baseless rumors that he’s gearing up to call his own number for the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show and working on a new album set to drop this fall, to say nothing of the weekslong shared psychosis that he would be a secret feature on the new Clipse album.
In reality, the most Jay’s done this year is take a few random breaks from being a Tour Dad to join his wife and oldest daughter on stage for a song or two. But brief as his cameos have been, they’re electric nonetheless—a potent reminder of how effortlessly he can command a stage, how quickly he can energize an audience (a sold-out stadium’s worth, mind you) and how eternally crowd-pleasing his bag of hits is. Not that anyone forgot, but it’s been awhile—and the sight of Jay on stage is always welcome.
I was lucky enough to witness the latest GOAT sighting at Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour finale in Vegas last weekend; it was exciting even though I knew it was coming and thrilling even though I’ve seen him live at least a dozen times over the years. Watching him mug for the crowd, shades on, grill flashing, Timbs laced up, you could tell he was relishing the moment just as much as the audience was. Does he miss this? He must, right? Jay’s a happily half-retired family man, leveraging his various businesses for more power and influence, but you just know a part of him misses the metaphorical block like Marlo’s last scene in The Wire.
He probably feels like he’s in a slight pickle because while 4:44 may not crack his top five albums, it was kind of a perfect, fully realized statement on his life as it stands—and a likely hard act to follow, lest he fuck up the Rubik’s Cube again. He probably isn’t doing the Super Bowl, and presumably (definitely) has no interest in subjecting himself to the physically demanding rhythms of another full tour again. But yet and still, we need Jay-Z back outside for real, somehow, some way. Here are my proposals, ranked from most to least ideal.
