Hundreds of thousands of music lovers descend on to the fields of Glastonbury every summer, a five-day celebration of all things culture that has become one of Britain’s most loved institutions and an international leader in live music.
The festival has been predominantly seen as a rock festival for most its life but there was one year when hip-hop ruled. That moment, as with many moments that hip-hop has transcended musical boundaries, was provided by none other than Jay-Z.
Jay-Z’s headline performance famously saw him pretend to play the guitar and sing-a-long to ‘Wonderwall’ in retaliation to Noel Gallagher’s provocative comment of “I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It’s wrong.”
By the end of his set, however, Jay Z had proved all of his doubters wrong and provided one of the most iconic performances in the history of the festival that proved that hip-hop was here to stay at the top of the Somerset bash’s bill.
The Verve and Kings Of Leon were the other two headliners of the festival that year, who both provided sets much more forgettable than Jay Z, with the rapper delivering one of the most memorable Glasto performances of recent years.
It’s a piece of genius that deserves to be seen over and over again.
