Eminem and Jay-Z Team For Detroit, New York Stadium Shows

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Two titans of hip-hop, Eminem and Jay-Z, will team up for a pair of concerts at their respective hometowns' baseball stadiums this September. Slim Shady and Jigga made the announcement yesterday at Detroit's Comerica Park where Em's Tigers were hosting Jay's New York Yankees. The duo will perform at Comerica on September 2nd, then head to Yankees Stadium on September 13th. Eminem will headline the Detroit show, Jay-Z the Bronx gig.

"This is a once in a lifetime set of shows and I know we're both really going to bring it to our hometowns," Eminem said at Comerica Park. "The fans are going to love this — and so am I. It's gonna be historic." Not counting a few secret shows following the release of his most recent album Relapse, the concerts will stand as Eminem's second and third official gigs since 2005, having only performed at the 2009 Voodoo Festival in New Orleans.

"These shows are like a dream come true. I've always hoped that hip-hop could play any stadium like other genres of music," Jay-Z added. "How perfect is it that Eminem and I get to play our hometowns and show how far the live rap experience has come? Fun and historic, a great combination all around the board." Jay-Z is no stranger to playing Yankee Stadium: The rapper and Alicia Keys performed Blueprint 3's "Empire State of Mind" at the new House That Ruth Built during the Yankees' World Series run last season.

Eminem and Jay-Z had previously joined forces to promote the "Renegade Edition" of the music video game DJ Hero.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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