“Who you know fresher than Hov’? Riddle me that.”

Jay-Z backed up his statement with Friday’s headlining performance at All Points West. I saw him once in 1997, after releasing only 2 albums (Reasonable Doubt and In My Lifetime Vol. 1) when he was the second opener on Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Family tour. Twelve years and a staggering nine albums later, Jay-Z is a living legend.

Backed by a live band, Jay-Z opened the show with The Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”, and powered through two sets over the next hour and a half. Memphis Bleek joined him on stage for several songs, including “Beware of the Boys”, “Roc Boys”, and a phenomenal performance of “I Just Wanna Love You”. He paid tribute to Michael Jackson with “I Want You Back”, which segued into “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and returned to “I Want You Back”, with Michael Jackson’s vocal track playing over the band’s instrumental. He also performed his verse of Kanye West’s “Diamonds are Forever” to a stripped-down beat, and ended the set with “Run This Town”, his new song with Rihanna and Kanye West.

After a brief break, Jay-Z came back to tease a verse off his new album, The Blueprint 3, coming out on September 11. He followed with a medley of hits with other artists, including “Money Ain’t a Thang” (Jermaine Dupri), “Fiesta” (R. Kelly), and was joined again by Memphis Bleek for “La, La, La (Excuse me Again)”. He played several songs from his older albums, including Reasonable Doubt (“Feelin It”), In My Lifetime Vol 2. (“Hard Knock Life” and “Can I get A…”), and In My Lifetime Vol. 3 (“Big Pimpin’” – definitely a highlight). His Linkin Park version of “Encore” was an appropriate closer, after which he took off his sunglasses to recognize individual audience members and thank everyone for their years of support.

Check out Jay-Z’s take on “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” below: