[Photos & Footage] Jay-Z Performs First Show at Barclay, Honors Notorious Big

What. A. Night. Our correspondents (lucky them!) attended Jay-Z’s opening show at Brooklyn’s new Barclay Center. With a packed house, Jigga hit the stage (rockin’ a #4 Brooklyn Nets Jersey) to “Where I’m From” and “Brooklyn Go Hard” and pleased the crowd when he honored the late, Notorious BIG, holding a moment of silence. In between a freestyle or two and a few speeches here and there, his set included classics–“Empire State of Mind,” “Big Pimpin”, “Encore”, “Hard Knock Life”, ”I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me),” ”Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” ”99 Problems”, etc. Here’s footage of Jay coming on stage:

And if you love to hear Hov talk, here’s footage of him speaking about the grand opening and how everyone has ‘genius talent’. He also drops a freestyle:

“This is Rich Porter, part two…..You can stunt like that when you’re rich before your debut….Money and the murder, rapper or the trapper/ Either way I’m gonna serve ya….Shooters on my team… No really, I got shooters on my team….Juan or Deron/ How you n*ggas want it, pick a arm…They call me Lucky Lefty…/ Ball so hard I don’t respect the f*ckin’ referees.”

Check it out.

[youtube width=”590″ height=”415″]http://youtu.be/-_QUBhKiwzY[/youtube]

Jay-Z will perform at Barclays through Oct. 6 with the exception of Oct. 2.

P.S. We spotted Beyonce in the crowd, lending full better-half support.