Jay-Z Said His Disastrous Tour With R. Kelly Was ‘Sad to See’
Jay-Z and R. Kelly collaborated on two albums and toured together in the early 2000s. Their first tour, which they scheduled for 2002, was canceled following Kelly’s child pornography charges. They tried again in 2004, but the joint tour didn’t last long. After a series of canceled concerts, Jay-Z continued with the tour without Kelly. He later said it was “sad” to see the other performer’s behavior.
Jay-Z went on tour with R. Kelly
In 2004, Jay-Z and Kelly embarked on the Best of Both Worlds tour. Immediately, they ran into controversy. Kelly ran a skit during the very first show that made light of the criminal charges against him. They canceled a series of shows because of R. Kelly, and he even walked off the stage at Madison Square Garden, claiming audience members were waving guns at him. A childhood friend of Jay-Z’s then pepper-sprayed Kelly backstage.
In the aftermath, Jay-Z said he could no longer share a stage with Kelly.
“That situation was not salvageable, and now we’re moving forward,” promoter Jeff Sharpe told The New York Times.
Jay-Z viewed him as unreliable.
“Can you perform with someone who might leave you onstage at any given moment?” he said, explaining his decision to drop Kelly from the tour.
Kelly found this move disappointing.
“The fans deserve better than this,” he said in a statement. “I’d like the show to go on. It’s really disappointing that Jay-Z and the promoter don’t.”
Jay-Z later said the tour with R. Kelly was ‘sad’
Years after the disastrous tour, Jay-Z did not mince words when talking to a journalist about it.
“Didn’t go well?” he told Rolling Stone in 2010. “That’s the understatement of the year.”
Jay-Z said their relationship fell apart because he was trying to help Kelly. He hinted that whatever advice he tried to offer did not go over well.
“I wanted to help him, and I’d tell him things that were maybe not my place to say,” he said. “It was sad to see.”
At that point, Jay-Z and Kelly hadn’t spoken at all in the years since the canceled tour.
Nas called out the artists for working together following the charges against Kelly
Nas and Jay-Z feuded for years, and the former once called out the latter for continuing to work with Kelly.
“That’s not my style,” he said on Wendy Williams’ radio show, per Vibe Magazine. “I could have shown the R. Kelly video that everybody’s talking about and made fun of it and show pictures of Jay hanging out. You can’t tell me Jay didn’t see a 14-year-old girl come into the studio and sit on R. Kelly’s lap. You gonna tell me he didn’t see no 14-year-old girl come into the vicinity?”
He said that he had been well aware that R. Kelly had problems, and felt that Jay-Z should have known after working with him.
“You’ve seen it go down. I’ve been around R. Kelly … I’ve been on tours with him,” he said. “I didn’t see no 14-year-old, but I talked to the man and see there’s a little problem there. The brother needs help and I pray for him. I’m here for the people. I’m here to talk [about] the truth.”
How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
