Jay-Z seemed to promise well in advance that his “Reasonable Doubt” 30th anniversary show would, in fact, be a celebration of the debut album he released in June 1996. That didn’t stop him from pulling out all the stops (well, most of them, at least) during the first of his three headlining shows at Yankee Stadium on Friday night, setting off a series of performances to commemorate a couple of milestones (the other being the 25th anniversary). from “The Blueprint”) plus a bonus show billed as “Extra Innings” that, as of now, has a stadium-sized question mark over what it will actually be.

The Brooklyn native doesn’t often pass up an anniversary (think 2006, when he paid tribute to 10 years of “Reasonable Doubt” with a Radio City show complete with a full orchestra) or make a mountain out of an already sizable molehill. The first of his Yankee Stadium concerts came just over a month after the end of a solo layoff when he performed a one-off, must-see headline performance at the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia, where, backed by the legendary Roots crew, he toured his discography while paying tribute to the host city with guest appearances from Jazmine Sullivan, Bilal, Beanie Sigel, Freeway and more.

For his “Reasonable Doubt” show, he didn’t go completely off script (every song on the record was performed in one way or another), yet he turned the night into a Jay-Z history lesson, weaving in snippets of other hits and trotting out a killer lineup of guests that ranged from his family (Beyoncé, Blue Ivy Carter) to friends and former enemies (Nas, Jaz-O) in an effort to complete the world he had built three decades ago.

That started with his wife Beyoncé, absent from the Roots Picnic stage but front and center at Friday’s show opening at Yankee Stadium to play Mary J. Blige’s iconic hook on “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” (Blige, meanwhile, was booked and busy performing at her Las Vegas residency.) Dressed in a pinstripe suit, Bey stunned the stadium with a megawatt-upfront look, something usually reserved for much more at a show this size.

What followed was a jazzy, laid-back tribute to the album that transformed him from a hustler to a top dog. “Reasonable Doubt,” a record that relied heavily on stories from the streets as a springboard away from them, was performed almost entirely in sequence, with Jay backed by a live band and flanked on either side by fans in the stands. Clad in a bomber jacket and the hat he made more famous than a Yankee can, Jay ran through “Politics As Usual,” incorporating Frank Ocean’s hook from “Made in America” before moving into a freestyle that was a softer version of the one he kicked in Philadelphia. (He deflated the online controversy over the sale of “Reasonable Doubt” vinyl at Target with classic Jay-Z wit: “I don’t listen to Twitter activists, they write and I laugh at them / There’s really no comparison.”)

There was speculation about what Jay-Z could do to have “Brooklyn’s Finest” replace Notorious BIG’s verse: Would he have BIG affiliates Lil’ Kim and Lil’ Cease handle the verses, or maybe make it a call-and-response with the audience? He largely settled for the latter, but also turned it into a tribute to his former partner in crime, contrasting Biggie’s iconic verses with the instrumental of “One More Chance.” The spirit of New York was alive throughout the show as Nas, famously sampled in “Dead Presidents” and its sequel, emerged to perform “The World Is Yours” and “NY State of Mind” while the beat of Jay’s “Where I’m From” was thrown into the mix. There was even a coveted surprise appearance on “Bring It On” by Jaz-O, Jay-Z’s early mentor, who famously disagreed with his protégé as his star began to rise. (The only real takeaway from the evening was the absence of Foxy Brown on “Ain’t No N—,” a single that put Jay on club mixes early in the album cycle.)

Amid performances of “Can I Live” and “D’Evils,” as well as non-“Reasonable Doubt” songs like “Jigga My N—a” and “Excuse Me Miss,” the most emotionally resonant moment of the evening came with Jay’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, sitting behind the keys of “Feelin’ It,” a record initially produced by Ski Beatz for Camp Lo before Jay took it over. Perhaps it was the heart of the show, a generational bridge that showed how far Blue Ivy has come in the years she grew up in the spotlight. He played the piano with ease and did not miss a note; Jay-Z smiled like a proud father, as expected.