It is somewhat unbelievable that at this point in his career, Jay-Z still suffers from stage fright. Hov has definitely done thousands of performances, so one would imagine that he has overcome his fear of the stage by this point. However, Hov says he still goes through fearing the stage and his method of coping with that might surprise you.
You might remember when #IFWT reported on Dame Dash saying that at one point in his career, Hov had no on-stage personality. In an interview with Boyce Watkins, Dame says that Hov was a terrible performer and he doesn’t necessarily say that he got any better. After an interview with the New Yorker was released, the comments that Dame made in his interview, somewhat make sense now.
Jay-Z makes a point to say that when an artist first has a hit record, they have no idea of how to perform in front of people and it scares them and perhaps makes them nervous when it comes time to hit the stage. He uses an analogy and compares the fight to being naked in front of people, and the way you over come that is to cover yourself. THE INFAMOUS CROTCH GRAB. LOL! If you have ever seen Jay-Z perform live, then you know he often does this gesture and there you have it!
Ironically, Hov says about performing, “And then you throw this person on stage who has never been on stage before, you know, because the music leads. So they don’t have any experience on how to perform in front of people,” and that perfectly coincides with Dame previous statements. Dame claimed that currently, hit records are what gets Hov through his performances and after reading that excerpt from Jay’s interview, it looks like Dame knows exactly what he’s talking about.
My most recent Jay-Z experience, however, was at Terminal 5 in NYC for his B-Sides show and I can’t say that he looked at all nervous. It was actually one of the better performances that I’ve seen him do live.
