Sophia Michaels
While Mariah Carey has spent the last few weeks celebrating the 25th anniversary of Butterfly, she revisited the “splendor” of her 2005 LP The Emancipation of Mimi Saturday at Global Citizen by reuniting with rappers Jadakiss and Styles P for the first performance of the remix for “We Belong Together” in 17 years.
“I have some special friends as well. And I thought it would be nice since we’re in the New York area to relive the splendor,” Carey told the Global Citizen crowd at Central Park. “I have a couple friends who are native New Yorkers.”
The Lox rappers then crisply delivered their remix verses before Carey pivoted to the Mimi rendition of the Hot 100-topping single. While “We Belong Together” is a fixture at every Carey concert — she’s performed it nearly 400 times — the remixed version hadn’t been performed since Dec. 31, 2005, when she and the Lox rappers sang it on a Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special.
Outside of a handful of promotional performances, award show appearances and her Oct. 2020 made-for-TV Christmas concert, the Global Citizen set marked Carey’s first significant concert since before the Covid-19 pandemic; her The Butterfly Returns residency in Las Vegas ended on Feb. 29, 2020, just weeks before coronavirus shut down live music.
