Live: Jay-Z at Staples Center

During the recording of “The Blueprint 3,” Jay-Z’s latest chart-topping full-length, the Brooklyn-born rapper gleaned something from frequent collaborator Kanye West: how to transform album tracks into arena-sized epics.

In front of a sold-out Staples Center crowd Friday night and backed by a 10-piece band -- a three-member horn section, two guitarists, keyboardists and two drummers, along with backup emcee Memphis Bleek -- the lyricist born Shawn Carter proved he could deliver a similar punch in a live setting. Drawing maximum response from the audience, he playfully asked its members to throw their diamonds in the sky and repeatedly thanked them for their support. He even sang “Happy Birthday” to a fan holding a “Birthday Girl” sign.

Jay-Z, the hustler turned rapper turned brand name as big as the borough, owned sold-out Staples. “This is Sinatra at the opera, bring a blond,” he rapped on “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).” And if the spectacle wasn’t exactly Wagner’s “Ring Cycle,” at times it felt like an egalitarian equivalent, witnessed by a wide demographic mix of fractionalized L.A., all drawn to the 40-year-old who has almost single-handedly spawned the genre “classic rap.”

Many arrived dressed as if they were gunning for a cameo on “Entourage.” Models clutching Gucci handbags stood among tabloid fodder, Chris Rock, Christina Aguilera, actors in Affliction tees and B-boys in baggy pants. A duo donned outfits honoring the 15th anniversary of N.W.A founder Eazy-E’s death -- a milestone Jay-Z neglected to mention when he shouted, “R.I.P. Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G., Big Pun, Big L, and Pimp C” after an electrifying denouement to “Big Pimpin’.”

Although he has boasted of his entrepreneurial beginnings on the street earning seed money by “flipping a record company from a half a [kilo],” Jay-Z’s renegade independent days are in the past. As he rapped on “Real as It Gets,” “I used to duck shots / but now I eat quail / I’ll probably never see jail.” He’s the megastar who two years ago inked a reported $150-million partnership with Live Nation Entertainment to advance his Jay-Z brand.

It’s a business that strives to be as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola or Nike. Before the show, big screens solicited the audience to “text BP3” and join the “Jay-Z movement.” Along L.A. Live’s walkways, people signed up to win merchandise made by one of his companies, Roc Nation.

Dovetailing with his corporate successes as the former chief executive of Def Jam Recordings is Jay-Z’s consummate professionalism. There’s no denying his style, or his hits, as impressive a body of work as any rapper’s. From “Ain’t No” to “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” “I Just Wanna’ Love U (Give It 2 Me)” to “Empire State of Mind,” Jay-Z can fill a two-hour set with a keen, razor-sharp lyrical catalog memorized by 20,000 people. And that’s what he did, with his band teasing out the arrangements to fulfill Carter’s orchestral, “Avatar”-sized aspirations.

His only real misstep was ceding the stage to Young Jeezy for a 30-minute interlude. The Atlanta emcee gamely attempted to fill the void but illustrated how difficult it is to command such a large crowd. Thankfully, an Ice Cube cameo to perform “Check Yo Self” appeased the restless.

The evening’s most poignant moment arrived when Jay-Z delved into his back catalog, performing “Can I Live,” and “Where I’m From.” The tracks served as a reminder that here was the same Jay-Z who won over first the doubters and then the masses starting from summer ’96. But as great as the original version was, it never could have sold out the Staples Center or validated the words of “Encore,” the final song of the night, with the line, “I came, I saw, I conquered, from record sales, to sold-out concerts.”

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