Jay-Z Stays Low-Key in the House

Brooklyn-bred rapper Jay-Z has five consecutive million-selling albums, and a sixth, “The Blueprint,” that just spent three weeks at No. 1. Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has matched that streak with a multimedia empire that reaches from clothing to sports management.

Like David Bowie and Madonna before him, Jay-Z has used that marketing savvy to propel himself to stardom. At his sold-out show Saturday at the House of Blues, the two aspects were undeniably linked, starting with the choice of venue.

While he could have easily filled a much larger room, the more intimate nightclub setting made the show an event. Lines of ticket-holders stretched around the block, and hundreds more loitered on the street corners clamoring to get in.

During the first third of his 90-minute set, Jay-Z seemed capable of exceeding the fans’ high expectations. Accompanied only by his DJ, Scratch, Jay-Z made the first 30 minutes a kind of coronation by keeping the spotlight to himself.

After delivering an effective, a cappella rap about the recent tragedies and their aftermath, he jumped into the smash single “Izzo (H.O.V.A.).” Feeding off the energy of the enthusiastic crowd, whose members jumped, waved their hands and sang along with every refrain, Jay-Z displayed a confident, methodical flow that was surprisingly low-key and devoid of bravado.

He let the candidness that characterizes “The Blueprint” come through during the soulful and occasionally moving “Song Cry,” which features a sample from Bobby Glenn’s “Sounds Like a Love Song.”

Things dragged a bit when he fell into such hip-hop cliches as an overly long exchange with the fans. Utilizing his savvy, though, Jay-Z never let the show slip away from him, and he rebounded strongly during the final third of the night by turning to familiar tunes such as “The Blueprint’s” “Girls, Girls, Girls.”