Jay-Z covers the latest issue of GQ, and the interview is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Jay hasn’t done a sit-down interview like this in several years, and this is his first time speaking out since he was sued for sexually assaulting a minor. He was sued in late 2024, by a woman claiming that the assault occurred in 2000 after the VMAs. As it turned out, the woman’s story fell apart in a matter of days and the lawsuit was quickly dropped. Jay-Z is now suing this woman and her lawyer for their recklessness. When all that was happening, he came out swinging. These days, he just sounds really sad that the whole thing happened. You can read the whole piece here, and I’m just doing highlights about the now-dismissed lawsuit & Jay’s thoughts about Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s beef.
Rating his 2025: “It was hard. Really hard. I was heartbroken. I’m glad we got right to that so we could just get that out the way. Like I was really heartbroken by everything that occurred. We’re in a space now where it’s almost like consequence is not thought about enough. Because everything is so instant, you know what I’m saying? That whole [lawsuit thing], that sh-t took a lot out of me. I was angry. I haven’t been that angry in a long time, uncontrollable anger. You don’t put that on someone—that’s a thing that you better be super sure. It used to be like that. You had to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person. Especially a person like me. Even when we were doing the worst things, we had those kind of rules. There was a line: no women, no kids. You hear those sayings, but those are the things that I took from the street. We lived and died by that. So it’s strict for me, like it meant a lot to me. I took that really hard. I knew that we were going to walk through that because, first of all, it’s not true. And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme.
He would never have settled that claim: “If I settled—make that thing go away. And for me, it would’ve been cheaper? Yes. Cheaper, quicker, move on with your life. I knew what was coming. I wasn’t naive. I called—again, after my family—my partners. They were like, “What do you need to help? Don’t even worry.” In a phone call. Not even a: “I got to go to the board with this.” It was like a testament because people know me. Like: “I know who you are and that’s impossible. Not only are we standing by you, but what do you need?”
Dealing with it emotionally: “I’m still dealing with that. Because that’s a horrible thing to put on someone. It was like released the night of my daughter’s [movie] premiere… But our family, we are a tight unit. Blue has this jersey with “Jay-Z” on the back. She put it on one day. She went to school with the “Jay” [points to his back]. I was just in the corner, like tears coming down. Seriously. To have that, it’s priceless. People can say that [they’ll always be there for you], but it’s very rare that you’re going to have to exercise it. And in the darkest moment for me, I got to see those sorts of things.
Fatherhood: “It gives everything meaning, everything. I’ll go cross-country, do what I have to do, and I’m back on the plane that night. I love taking them to school. I love picking them up. Everything means so much more.
Watching Blue perform on her mother’s tour: “That was amazing. On the first tour there was a lot of conversation around her first performance, and she worked really hard to get to that point, but she still wasn’t going for it. She still was going through the motions. And then she just started fighting back. I saw her fight maybe for the first time in her life—like, not everything is just given to her and everything is easy. She fought for it. She’s almost on every number. I had to take her off some, like, “Man, you can’t be on that stage when she’s singing ‘Six-inch heels…’; are you crazy?” Blue is a crazy pianist, but she won’t let us get her a teacher. She doesn’t want it to be a job. But she has perfect pitch. If she hears a song, she’ll be like “Play it again” and then she’ll teach herself. That’s just talent, she doesn’t work at that. She worked at this, and it makes me proud that she fought for something that she really wanted to do. I don’t think we’re going to be able to get her off that stage now.
Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime show: “He could have made it a little easier on himself. The artistic choice to play the new album was brave in front of that big of an audience. Because even if 10 million people know some of these songs, there’s 120 million people that’re like, “What is he doing?” As an artist, to stand up there and do it and complete your vision—I had to tip my hat. I had high respect for him already, but, like, even more my respect was like: He’s really about what he says he’s about.
The beef between Kendrick and Drake: “We love the excitement and I love the sparring, but in this day and age there’s so much negative stuff that comes with it that you almost wish it didn’t happen….Now, people that like Kendrick hate Drake, no matter what he makes. It’s like an attack on his character. I don’t know if I love that. I don’t know if it’s helpful to our growth where the fallout lands, especially on social media…It’s too far. It’s bringing people’s kids in it. I don’t like that. I sound like the old guy wagging his finger, but I think we can achieve the same thing, as far as sparring with music, with collaborations more so than breaking the whole thing apart. It could stand it before because there was no social media. You had the battle and it was fun and then you moved on. Right now, I don’t know if it could stand it with the technology that we have.
This is the first time where I kind of think Jay sounds like an “oldhead” – when he’s talking about the Kendrick-Drake beef. What is he even saying? And it’s not like Kendrick was the first person to bring someone’s kids into it. Kendrick only went there because Drake went there first!! And incidentally, Cardi B & Nicki Minaj’s beef makes Kendrick and Drake look quaint, but I guess women’s beef doesn’t matter as much. As for the stuff about the lawsuit… I think he handled it correctly and stood up for himself in the right way. What happened there was completely awful.
Jay-Z on the 2024 back-and-forth between Kendrick Lamar and Drake: “We’ve just grown so much that — I guess I’m going to say it — I don’t know if battling needs to be a part of the culture anymore.” https://t.co/m525l4hbDC pic.twitter.com/M0EQIK75wO
— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) March 24, 2026
Cover courtesy of GQ, photos courtesy of Backgrid.
-
- New York, NY – Jay-Z, Tina Knowles, and Tyler Perry were seen leaving the ‘Mea Culpa’ premiere at the Paris Theater in New York. Pictured: Jay-Z BACKGRID USA 15 FEBRUARY 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- New York, NY – Rapper and mogul Jay-Z takes a helicopter back to New York after attending the Armand De Brignac Champagne launch party at the Ocean City Resort in Atlantic City. Pictured: Jay-Z BACKGRID USA 15 SEPTEMBER 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles premiere of Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” at Dolby Theatre. Pictured: Jay-Z, Beyoncé BACKGRID USA 9 DECEMBER 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles premiere of Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” at Dolby Theatre. Pictured: Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Blue Ivy Carter BACKGRID USA 9 DECEMBER 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
So there was a lot of discourse around his comments on the beef on YouTube among The hip Hop reactors, who were angry and felt like he was betraying hip hop, but this interview was really nuanced and I get what he is saying. Even says in the interview that people will probably disagree with him, but this is how he personally feels now.
Of course this wasn’t the first time people’s kids were brought into it, he himself said some pretty terrible stuff during his beef with Nas. The difference is though social media has changed the game. You had to be deep in the culture, to really get the nuance of a lot of stuff that was going on.
Now you have people doxing people’s families homes, creating horrific AI on people’s kids, and stans going to people’s mom’s graves ( Meghan the Stallion/Nicki). It’s gotten really disgusting.
And if someone in their mid-50s, who was in a high-profile beef, and has had to deal with at this point decades of social media rumors ( Illuminati, devil worshipping,fake pregnancies, sexual assault allegations) I can see his point of view of pass.
I’ll say the same thing though that I said when all the YouTubers were losing their mind, he just said it’s his opinion. If you don’t agree that beef should be excluded from hip Hop then don’t agree. It’s not like he can lay down and edict that people can’t battle rap anymore.
On “Supa Ugly” Jay Z bragged about having an alleged three year long affair with Nas’s girlfriend Carmen Bryan. Then Gloria Carter, Jay’s mom, called into Hot 97 saying he should apologize to Nas and his family LOL.
I love a good hip hop beef but I kinda get what he’s saying here. People are really tired these days. I understand not having the energy to deal with more negativity and animosity from industry peers.
I was just coming here to bring that up along with Tupac doing a whole song about sleeping with Biggie’s wife.
Hmmm. The feud was one fun but once one side gets annilhated there’s no much left to do. Drake’s case didnt help either.
Well hindsight is often 20/20 and I understand why he’d come out with this type of oldhead moralizing at this point in his career. And we know he’s big on protecting his business interests now days even if it throws parts of the community under the bus (2013 racial profiling comments about Barneys; 2019 betrayal of Colin Kaepernick with the NFL deal, etc.). So to me this is just more of the same. This comes off as a big whitewash of his past where he was openly bragging about his affair with Carmen Bryan when she was with Nas, his relationship with Foxy that started when she was like 15, etc. So spare me the hypocrisy so he can chase more paper.
And also, sir, please explain
“I’m Ike, Turner, turn up / Baby no I don’t play / Now eat the cake, Anna Mae / I said eat the cake, Anna Mae”
I don’t follow him at all, so I’ll defer to others here pointing out his hypocrisy.
That said, I will observe that times have changed — to the extent that with our current political and cultural climate, we’re all spinning in so much negativity, so much chaos and real fear of what may happen, that I’m sympathetic to the idea that maybe this is not the best time to be feuding for entertainment purposes.
If you’re calling someone out for real pain they’re causing to vulnerable people, that’s one thing. But if you’re battling because it’s fun, because it draws attention, maybe not now.
Also, we don’t even know yet how social media and its effects are going to grow and change and affect our culture and our society. Hell, we’re still dealing with the way television has changed the way we deal with one another, changed the way politics happens in this country.
And social media is much newer and even more volatile, because unlike television it came up basically without rules, without guardrails.
A lot of those have been destroyed for television, but we can see the difference between what it was like when they were in place, when we had the Fairness Doctrine, equal time, standards of truthfulness, more diversified ownership,
versus what it’s like now.
With social media, we didn’t start that way. It was the Wild West to begin with, and now we’re on the back foot, trying to somehow stuff the monster into restraints. It’s a crazy situation, really.
Look at the work Meghan and Harry are doing with families whose children have lost their lives, directly due to social media. That might not be necessary if we’d been more prescient, smarter, about how we handled this new thing to begin with.
That’s the thing, he acknowledges himself that it’s a little hypocritical. He mentions how much he actually likes Nas and what a nice guy he really is in the interview, and how it made him regret the beef being older now. ( Also personally don’t get the whole you can’t say anything cuz you’re a hypocrite thing, we’re all hypocrites on some stuff).
That being said though, like you pointed out we have started to see what the impact of such a heightened social media environment has to how people interact with each other, and the impact it has on them and their brains in the long term. You can’t compare a rap beef in 2001 to 2003, and music being played on Hot 97, and snippy stuff in The Source or XXL, to AI videos and YouTube channels and Tiktoks with misinformation and disinformation that have a million views.
We really have to think about what we put out in the world now, and if that means that some art forms have to change because of that. It is what it is.
@Dee(2)
Completely agree. Art does many things. One is that it shapes the times we live in. Another is that it changes to meet the times we live in.
Great art can live far beyond its era — look at how beautiful, how emotionally affecting, the earliest cave paintings we’ve found are, to our modern eyes.
But even good art can lose all relevancy, even become completely unacceptable, as the time it was made in passes and new standards of what’s acceptable arise.