“I’ve been away too long,” Jay-Z told a hyped-up SoFi Stadium crowd soon after taking the stage on Friday night. The rap icon was met with cheers as he, at last, brought his yearlong victory tour to Los Angeles.

Indeed, it’s been close to a decade since Jay last played a full-fledged solo concert in the city, with Shawn Carter closing out his 4:44 Tour across the street at the Forum in 2017 and playing the Rose Bowl for his joint On the Run Tour with Beyoncé a year later. After a historic three-night run in New York at Yankee Stadium and a few more shows in London and Paris, not to mention an eight-part HBO docuseries directed by Rick Rubin, it’s finally L.A.’s turn, as Jay kicked off the first of two much-anticipated concerts Friday night in celebration of the 30th anniversary of his debut album Reasonable Doubt and 25th anniversary of The Blueprint.

The result was a career-spanning tour de force from one of hip-hop’s most seminal figures, and perhaps more Yankee hats and jerseys in the crowd than SoFi…