Jay-Z, Beyonce announce new joint tour

NEW YORK: Music´s first couple Beyonce and Jay-Z on Monday announced a new joint tour in what will likely mark some of the year´s most lucrative concerts.

The rapper and diva, who in June gave birth to twins, will open the stadium tour on June 6 in the Welsh city of Cardiff.

The 36-date show will travel across Europe, including a Bastille Day show at the Stade de France in Paris, before a North American leg that closes on October 2 in Vancouver.

Beyonce announced the tour in a series of posts to her 112 million Instagram followers, including a black-and-white photo in which the couple poses sensually astride a motorcycle, an Old West-style bull´s skull on the front.

She also posted a half-minute video of slow-motion footage of the two superstars, the reggae classic "I´m Still in Love With You" playing.

Jay-Z and Beyonce dubbed the tour "OTR II," a reference to their first co-headlining "On the Run" tour in 2014 which grossed some $100 million.

Beyonce is set to return to the stage in April to headline Coachella, the biggest-name US music festival, in her first performance since giving birth to the couple´s second and third children.

For Jay-Z, the tour follows solo concerts to promote "4:44," his introspective last album in which he notably apologizes to Beyonce for infidelity.