Beyonce and Jay-Z announced their second joint tour-“On the Run II”- via Instagram with photos and a cute promo video and everyone is shook. There was recent talk of the power couple going on tour together soon and now here it is. This isn’t the first time B and Jay have gone on tour together, with their installment of the OTR Tour dating back to 2014. That tour consisted of 22 shows and ranked in 109 million dollars in a time where the two had popular new albums and successful collaboration songs. But it’s been 4 years and with the announcement of their up-coming tour are we really willing to see another Beyonce and Jay-Z tour?
The two are wildly successful in their own right, but let’s be honest, Beyonce is going on tour and Jay-z is just tagging along to babysit Blue Ivy. Queen B is more of an all around entertainer than her rapper husband. She has stayed consistent with her music and current with today’s infatuation with catchy, minimal lyric, infectious beat songs. Jay-z on the other hand was on a rap hiatus until last year and is considered an old school rapper when put up against today’s hip-hop favorites like Migos, Lil Pump and Cardi B. His recent project- 4:44-although nominated for a Grammy got some slack from the younger generation for criticizing their chauvinistic antics, not having good radio playback value, or catchy bass thumping beats.
Beyonce is known for her tours. It’s the only way people get to see the very private star’s personality and performance skills, Jay on the other hand is not a performer. Her “I Am…World Tour” made 119 million dollars, which shows that if Bey can turn out those number on her own Jay-z is not needed. It would not be surprising to see during this tour people using Jay’s 30 minute solo sessions as intermissions to go use the bathroom, get a snack or take a group photo because they won’t be missing much.
The biggest factor of this tour is pricing. Currently, the OTR II Tour is pre-selling tickets from their kick off date of June 6 in Cardiff, UK to their last date of October 2 in Vancouver. The prices for their local stop in Miami Gardens are currently ranging from $120 for nosebleed seats to nearly $3,000 for Vip treatment packages in the front row. These numbers are typical for a tour with headlining artists like Beyonce and Jay-Z; however, some of their fans don’t have $120 for a concert and those who do make a way to buy a ticket will mostly be going for Beyonce and not so much Jay. It’s easy to argue that you won’t get your full money’s worth when B is not on stage and again who is paying anything over $85 to rap along with Jay-z when you can do it for free at home.
Jay is a very accomplished artist and has a long list of hits himself, but he lacks the theatrics, stage presence and dance capability his wife possesses. A Beyonce performance is a true experience; a once in a lifetime event not many people get to see first hand. At the looks of it only die hard Beyhive members will be putting up top dollar to see their “Muva” perform live. People who do end up going will probably argue that the show was worth it and was filled with epic moment but we’ll just have to see this summer what “OTR II” has in store.
