If you were, say, designing a massive concert to celebrate two of the most iconic albums in hip-hop, you might be tempted to go big: fireworks, lasers, maybe even a throne-like raised platform.

But if you’re Willo Perron and you’re planning the anniversary shows for Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint in New York City, the instinct is to go the other way. Keep it simple. One of the greatest rappers of all time doesn’t need theatrics.

“I think the statement piece in a Jay-Z show is Jay-Z,” Perron tells me. “This is more about storytelling than it is about stage design.”

On Friday, when Hov took the stage at Yankee Stadium in front of some 45,000 people, that proved true. He barreled through two hours of hits on a bare stage backlit by a massive 2,952-square-foot outfield-spanning screen showing images f...