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.

B-Sides 3: This concert format Jay pioneered back in 2015 is still one of the coolest things he’s done in the back half of his career. Any artist with a discography this vast has dozens of five-star classics adored by the Real Fans that they could never prioritize on an arena or stadium tour where they has to play the “hits” — so Jay downsizes to a Terminal 5 or Webster Hall to perform the fan favorites. I was lucky enough to attend this show and its 2019 sequel, where Jay ran through songs I thought I’d never hear live ever and buried longstanding hatchets with the likes of Dipset and Beanie Sigel. (You can stream the original B-Sides; B-Sides 2 remains woefully unreleased much like the Renaissance film.) If Jay doesn’t want to commit to a new project but wants to briefly restore the feeling, this is the most exciting way for him to have his cake and eat it too. Crucially, B-Sides 2 didn’t repeat the OG set list—Jay, give me one day and I’ll tidy up a worthy set list for the threequel. Hold it one or two nights only, in New York of course, and open it up to the Day Ones who can go bar for bar. (B-Sides 2 was full of AMEX-presale casuals who had no idea how monumental watching “Welcome to New York City” performed live for the first time was).

A Mixtape: Only a few artists still really prioritize the artistic delineation between “mixtape” and “actual album” in the post-streaming era, but the point remains: If an artist wants to flood the streets with some new verses without the pomp, circumstance and pressure of a proper project, a mixtape or EP would be the perfect hack. Who’s going to complain about a missing narrative theme or complete thought if Jay grabs Just Blaze for six tracks of reunited heaters? Or if he caught Pharrell in the zone that he’s been delivering in for Clipse lately? Those are just two scenarios off the top; I’m sure any of us could think of a dozen different ones that would be equally compelling, even if Jay really took it back and just jacked for beats. (Imagine Jay over some of the admittedly very good production from Bully—just saying.)

Roc-a-Fella Reunion Show: The only mythological beef left to squash at a third B-Sides show would be Jay’s rift with Dame Dash himself, and that’s uh, highly unlikely. But everyone else from the old Roc-a-Fella days seems to be on good terms, and Memphis Bleek has even been stirring the nostalgia pot with his new podcast interviewing different members of the old crew. Imagine how crazy a mini, five-or-so-city reunion tour with Jay, Beans, Bleak, Freeway, the Young Gunz, et al, would go—a twist on the B-Sides concept with the nostalgia ratched up even higher. It’d be a fitting bookend to a dynasty that ended in way messier fashion than it deserved.

A Khaled Verse/Loosie: Jay’s got a lot to address: he very nearly got caught up in the maelstrom of cancellations and civil cases surrounding Diddy, all of Young Money seems to resent him like it’s 2011 again, he and Kanye West are on the worst terms than they’ve ever been—all while he’s been beaming at his wife and two daughters from the sidelines of the biggest stages in the country for the last few months. We’re due for a State of the Union in the vein of “God Did” or “Dear Summer.” Jay could wait for Khaled and tack a verse onto whatever he has going on—but why not just do it himself? Jay doesn’t actually need the housing of a Khaled album if he wants to tell us what's been on his mind; a random track just dropping out of the sky would actually be beautiful. And if it’s well-received, who knows what it might spark? We could get that true fourteenth solo album after all.