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Rare footage of Jay-Z’s Hot 97 Summer Jam performance surfaces online

A video of Jay-Z’s legendary performance at Nassau Coliseum, New York, has surfaced online.

For the first time, footage of the rapper’s Summer Jam appearance in 2001 is available to watch in full. Famed for bringing Michael Jackson on stage at the end of his set, the performance also featured Missy Elliot and the moment Jay-Z first debuted his Nas and Mobb Deep diss track Takeover. As part of this dig, Jay-Z projected images of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy taking dance classes as a kid across the stadium.

The 2001 edition of the annual hip-hop event Hot 97 Summer Jam, which took place on 28 June, featured performances from Destiny’s Child, Outkast, Nelly and Ludacris.

Until now, there’s only been an audio recording of Jay-Z’s headline performance. Shared yesterday (11 April) by a Youtube channel called HipHopVCR, the show – which marked a historic part of hip-hop legacy – can now be watched in full online.

The video has been met with excitement on social media. “As a Hovenger and Roc-A-Fella Stan I’ve heard the live audio a million times, read every interview related to this moment,” one Twitter user wrote. “But 21 years later the actual footage from 2001 Summer Jam?!”

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