Lollipops, Butterflies, and Profanities

Anyone who has said its 'All in the Family' must have been referring to Hip-Hop because the Jay-Z/Eminem concert at Yankees stadium this week was like one big warm cozy hug.  Lollipops, butterflies, and profanities!  The love fest kicked off with Eminem, BOB, and surprise visits from Dr. Dre and 50 Cent.  Hugs all around - Eminem loves Dre, Dre loves Eminem, and although 50 Cent was in his signature bullet proof vest, he was a teddy bear in between takes of 'In Da Club'. 

The days of rap ridden with warring sects, shootings, and East Coast versus West Coast  are most certainly over.  Puff Daddy, Puffy, Diddy, or DingaLing (whatever he's going by these days) was in the friends and family section cheering on his besties like a proud parent.  Mary J. Blige was shoulder to shoulder with him rocking out until she showed up on stage later, shortly followed by Drake. 

When Jay-Z finally came on, more hugs and love.  Love to NY, love to NJ, love to the Bronx, love to Queens.  CT didn't get any love, weird.  It was always entertaining when Jay-Z would say 'to all my homies in the Bronx on the streetssssssss' and it panned to a white kid in a collared shirt on the big screen in Yankees Stadium.  Pysch, Jay-Z!  We snuck in some Upper East Siders too - who looked a little nervous but super excited.  And of course more surprise guests of the night - Kanye came on and so did Beyonce.  Sasha Fierce was amazing per the usual and looked so in love with her man (more love, theme of the night).  Kanye was a smidge less charming in a red leather suit and giant gold cowbell draped around his neck.  He looked very much like the douche bag/jerk off combo he sang about at the VMAs (thank god he didn't try and sing that number, that would have been an awkward sing-a-long).  The pinnacle of the night was when he sang Empire State of Mind in Yankees Stadium.  I think Jay-Z was just as touched by the moment as we were, seeing each person in Yankees stadium standing up and singing along. 

At around 1:00AM Jay-Z announced, 'I could go all night New York!', which was my queue to leave, because unlike Jay I would not be sipping on Bellini's with my girl B the next morning.  Some of us still need to hit the pavement in the concrete jungle.  We slipped out the back and apparently missed Chris Martin and Viva La Vida, but we had to viva la vamos.  Maybe next time.