The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

Jay-Z: Touring in a Private Jet for Cheap

By Sean Corbett on Nov 20, 2006 10:51PM

2006_11_Jay-Z.jpgJay-Z was in town Saturday afternoon at the Riviera for all of 30 minutes. By Sunday morning he had completed his whirlwind tour of the country, 7 cities in 24 hours. Chicagoist suspects Jay-Z has found the least expensive way to tour the nation on a private jet, as long as the tour takes less than 24 hours, you only have to rent the jet for one day. The craziness was to announce his new album and to officially catapult him out of retirement. If you weren’t aware, Jay-Z’s been “retired” since 2004, although that didn’t stem the tide of concerts or albums with his name on them. Expect to hear his new singles on all of your favorite Clear Channel radio stations and at the most bumpin-ist clubs around the city. You can pick up the album tomorrow at your local big-box music store (we can’t guarantee you’ll want to listen to it more than once), or you can download it from MySpace where it’s already been leaked.

Some highlights of the tour:

  1. People lined up in the cold at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to see Jay-Z in Atlanta
  2. The Chicago show was not sold out
  3. Jay-Z, his entourage, and the press in tow filled up three jets as they hopped around the country.

In related news: Universal filed a lawsuit against MySpace for hosting the album and for the “rampant copyright infringement” taking place there. The leak is likely to cost Rupert Murdoch several million dollars in damages and legal fees so make sure you get a copy before they take it down. Ohh, and this little lawsuit isn’t going to affect the Universal-MySpace partnership to sign promising MySpace-based artists to Universal.