Love Always Trumps Hate – Jay Z

I was trying to think of a major artist who’s ever had a more self-loathing album opener than “Kill Jay Z.”

Even though it also contains barbed lines aimed at College Dropout Kanye West (“You dropped outta school, you lost your principles”) and other famous wife cheaters like rapper Future and former “Mr. Halle Berry” Eric Benet, most of the vitriol is aimed at the artist himself.

He fesses up to cheating on Beyoncé and egging on sister-in-law Solange in an elevator and expresses his desire to go on a permanent bye-bye.

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Yet you have to wonder if by dropping off the hyphen in his name, he’s giving himself a “Get out of Jail Free” card. Like he wants to kill that “other” Jay Z. After all, this isn’t the first time he’s wanted to off himself artistically.

Remember the “99 Problems” video where he ritualistically acted out his own gangland slaying in a hail of bullets in a failed attempt at rebranding so he could start releasing records as Shawn Carter?

“I know there’s a lot of darkness out here tonight but love always trumps hate,” said Jay Z, choosing his verbs conspicuously here while wishing everyone could “bring more light” to curse the darkness we are all living through.

Speaking of darkness, I messed up in my notes on what song he performed for “all the ladies in the audience tonight.” I prefer to blame the autocorrect on my phone which later turned “Big Pimpin'” to “Big Pumpkin” and had me scratching my head for a half an hour.

“We’re only three shows in, but that first half was the best of the whole tour,” Jay Z gleamed with pride.

But pride goeth before a fall, and Jay Z took off his jacket emblazoned with “Blind for Love” on the back to perform what he called “the most uncomfortable song I’ve ever written,” the title track of his new album, which ended with the moving screens closing over him to hide his guilt and shame and project images of Beyoncé motorboating.

Old school anthems like “Jigga My N—a” and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” served to amply demonstrate that Jay Z had a career before marrying you-know-who and one that has sustained him with 14 No.1 albums — more than Elvis, although I’m not sure if that’s more than, you know, his wife.