Jay-Z Shades Kanye West With Lyric Change at Beyoncé’s Concert

Jay-Z is making his feelings crystal clear—and this time, he did it onstage in front of tens of thousands. During a surprise appearance at Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour stop in Paris on Sunday, Jay-Z sent a direct musical message to Kanye West, swapping a key lyric in one of their most iconic collaborations. The moment immediately went viral as fans caught what many are calling a long-overdue clapback.

Jay-Z joined Beyoncé for a high-energy medley including “Crazy in Love,” “Drunk in Love,” and “Partition,” but the real shocker came during his performance of “N—-s in Paris”—the chart-topping anthem from his 2011 Watch the Throne album with Kanye West.

In the original version, Jay-Z famously raps, “Just might let you meet Ye.” But in Paris, he flipped it to: “Just might let you meet Bey.”

The lyric swap was more than clever—it was pointed. It comes just three months after Kanye West launched an unprovoked social media tirade targeting Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s children. In now-deleted tweets, Kanye West questioned the intelligence of their 8-year-old twins, Sir and Rumi, and took additional shots at their daughter, Blue Ivy. The shocking remarks drew instant backlash, leaving many in the industry stunned.

Although Kanye West later apologized, he quickly walked it back in a chaotic interview with DJ Akademiks, calling the tweets “some of my worst—or maybe my best.” In April, he again issued an apology—only to follow it up with a vulgar comment about Beyoncé.

According to insiders, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were “absolutely not standing for” the remarks and were considering both private and legal responses.

Fans who caught the lyric change in Paris erupted with support on social media. One wrote, “Jay-Z just edited Kanye out of his own legacy. That’s poetic justice.” Another posted, “That’s how a grown man handles disrespect. Public insult = public response.”

Neither Jay-Z nor Kanye West have responded officially to the moment, but the silence speaks volumes.

Jay-Z and Kanye West’s relationship has long been labeled “complicated.” Once considered the gold standard of hip-hop collaborations, their bond has fractured over the years. Jay-Z hinted at deeper issues in a 2017 New York Times interview, saying, “There’s certain things that happened that’s not really acceptable to me. … But there’s genuine love there.”

With Sunday night’s performance, however, that love may have finally reached its limit. As the Cowboy Carter tour continues across Europe, fans are watching closely for any more lyrical easter eggs—or responses from Kanye West, who has never been one to stay silent for long.