Jay-Z, McCartney, Linkin Park Team Up
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When Jay-Z walked onto the stage wearing a John Lennon T-shirt underneath his gleaming white suit, it was a hint of the Grammy Awards' oddest mashup of the night.
The rap superstar performed a duet of "Numb/Encore" with Linkin Park. Earlier, when it won a Grammy for best rap-song collaboration, Linkin Park singer Mike Shinoda thanked "everyone in our management and legal teams that made this record possible, because it was a nightmare."
It certainly looked like a business transaction, because Jay-Z and Linkin Park had zero chemistry, barely acknowledging each other onstage.
Toward the end, Shinoda oddly sang a verse of the Beatles' "Yesterday," and that was the second hint. Soon after, Paul McCartney himself walked out to finish the song.
There they stood - the rock legend, hard rockers from a few generations after and a rap mogul. McCartney and Shinoda sang together, with Jay-Z adding "that's right" a few times afterward.
They ended the song arm-in-arm, standing under a portrait of the late Coretta Scott King.