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.�