JAY-Z has lastly shared his ideas on Drake and Kendrick Lamar‘s epic 2024 rap battle — and his stance would possibly shock you.
Regardless of being concerned in one in all hip-hop’s fiercest feuds with Nas within the early 2000s, Hov believes that Dot and Drizzy’s beef went “too far” and isn’t a fan of all of the negativity and division that continues to gas their rivalry.
“We love the joy and I really like the sparring and the music you get, however this present day, there’s a lot detrimental stuff that comes with it that you just nearly want it didn’t occur,” he mentioned in a uncommon interview with GQ forward of his lately introduced Cheap Doubt and The Blueprint anniversary exhibits at New York’s Yankee Stadium in July.
“Now, those that like Kendrick hate Drake, it doesn’t matter what he makes or says. And it goes far, too. It’s like assaults on his character [and family]. I don’t know if I really like that. I don’t know if it’s useful to our progress.”
The Roc Nation mogul went on to say that Kendrick and Drake’s beef inadvertently set hip-hop “a pair steps again” and wonders whether or not the age-old custom of battling “even must be part of the tradition anymore.”
“I hate that I’ve this perspective as a result of I do know what it seems like, I do know what it appears like. I hate it!” he acknowledged, alluding to his personal historical past of involvement in messy rap battles. “It’s simply how I really feel.”
The 56-year-old additionally laid out a path for holding hip-hop’s aggressive spirit alive with out damaging careers or relationships: “I feel we are able to obtain the identical factor, so far as sparring with music, with collaborations extra so than breaking the entire thing aside.
JAY-Z additionally addressed the backlash to Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Tremendous Bowl halftime present — particularly claims that he and Roc Nation, who oversee the annual spectacle, picked sides within the beef by handing the coveted gig to the Compton famous person.
“I selected the man that was having a monster yr. I feel it was the proper alternative. What do I care about them two guys battling? What’s that obtained to do with me? Have at it,” he argued.
Hov additionally laughed off ideas that he was a part of a “conspiracy” to “undermine” Drake: “It’s like, what the fuck? I’m fucking JAY-Z! [laughs.] All due respect to him. I’m fucking Hov. Respectfully. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Take a look at extra highlights from JAY-Z’s dialog with GQ under the place he talks about his relationship with J. Cole, the rumors of him leaping on the Clipse‘s Let God Type Em Out and the place he’s at with regards to new music.
On nearly showing on the Clipse’s Let God Type Em Out:
I used to be shut. I feel the very first thing that I say [about the sexual assault lawsuit], it needs to be mentioned from me. [Pauses and reconsiders.] I don’t wish to be so inflexible with it, although. I’m going to maintain that open. I’m going to take that again. I don’t wish to be so inflexible. However at that second, I used to be like, “Yeah, I wish to do one thing.” However to ensure that me to maneuver ahead, I obtained to get this shit out. I obtained to get it out.
On J. Cole:
I don’t have any detrimental emotions for him. I’m truly tremendous pleased with him and what he’s carried out … [DJ] Clue despatched [J. Cole’s Birthday Blizzard ’26 tape] to me truly, not Cole. I’m a fan of hip-hop and this tradition. I’m listening to all of it. I play all of it. I’m taking part in songs that most individuals haven’t heard of.
On new music:
I’ve a variety of scratch concepts they usually’re all unhealthy [laughs]. I obtained to be trustworthy … I don’t know what I have to create at the moment that’s going to fulfil me and make me completely satisfied, as a result of that’s most necessary. I do know I simply obtained to be trustworthy about what I really feel and the place I’m. Possibly I’m overthinking it. Possibly I’m stopping myself from simply creating.
No matter it’s, it simply must be a real illustration of how I really feel. Making an attempt to create one thing that folks like is the place I feel a variety of artists get jammed up. And folks can really feel that as a result of it’s not genuine. I simply obtained to make one thing timeless that I actually love and that’s actually trustworthy and true to who I’m.
On Kendrick Lamar’s Tremendous Bowl halftime present:
He might have made it a little bit simpler on himself. The creative option to play the brand new album was courageous in entrance of that large of an viewers. As a result of even when 10 million individuals know a few of these songs, there’s 120 million those that’re like, “What’s he doing?” As an artist, to face up there and do it and full your imaginative and prescient – I needed to tip my hat. I had excessive respect for him already, however, like, much more my respect was like, “He’s actually about what he says he’s about.”
On his previous beef with Nas:
[Our feud] didn’t occur on the Summer season Jam — that occurred with “Lex with TV units, the minimal”. It was a complete bunch of stuff main as much as that time. I truly remorse that as a result of I actually like Nas. He’s a very nice man.
On his since-withdrawn sexual assault lawsuit:
It was onerous. Actually onerous. I used to be heartbroken. I’m glad we obtained proper to that so we might simply get that out the best way … That shit took rather a lot out of me. I used to be offended. I haven’t been that offended in a very long time, uncontrollable anger. You don’t put that on somebody — that’s a factor that you just higher be tremendous certain.
Even after we have been doing the worst issues, we had these sort of guidelines. There was a line: no ladies, no youngsters. You hear these sayings, however these are the issues that I took from the road. We lived and died by that. So it’s strict for me, prefer it meant rather a lot to me … I knew that we have been going to stroll by way of that as a result of, initially, it’s not true. And the reality, on the finish of the day, nonetheless reigns supreme.
On 4:44:
4:44 launched rather a lot. I can’t actually even hearken to 4:44. It’s the album that I used to be all the time afraid to make… Simply pure and weak, the true inside ideas … It was a variety of trauma [growing up], a variety of loss, a variety of seeing issues that nine-year-olds shouldn’t be seeing. We tuck it away and we bury it, after which it exhibits up in numerous methods … In some unspecified time in the future you bought to determine the way you’re going to navigate the world.
[My earlier albums were] simply all bravado. A part of it was closed off and it really works … Individuals just like the hothead. That pleasure and that hazard has an attract to it. That’s Jigga. It was very helpful, but it surely’s additionally not sustainable. You don’t wish to lookup someday and simply be in some insane asylum someplace, alone, no household. It’s one other facet of that that needed to occur.
On Cheap Doubt, 30 years later:
After we first dropped Cheap Doubt, we offered 43,000 information. The power was like, “You’re new. You haven’t confirmed your self.” However in our thoughts, the truth that we launched an album was proof sufficient of idea. We did it. Keep in mind, we’re not in command of distribution, advertising, something. We’re going like a street-level, street-team method to this. And so after we put the album out — that was the win. We had some success, and bear in mind: on the streets we have been platinum. Wherever you was going to go, you was going to listen to Cheap Doubt.
In the event you wasn’t there, now you’re wanting on the analytics. Somebody that speaks like that, you realize they wasn’t there as a result of in the event you have been there, you’re like, “This not even a dialog.” Wherever you went, any automobile, Cheap Doubt was going to play.
On J. Cole’s early struggles on Roc Nation:
The narrative is that we [Roc Nation] didn’t love Cole. No, we believed in him sufficient to let him discover his journey. It took him a minute, however he discovered his method. I used to be giving him an opportunity to take his expertise and present it to the most individuals attainable, however his method. I didn’t say, “Right here’s this file from Stargate and also you placing it out.” Like I compelled Bleek to make “Memphis Bleek Is…”
Bleek is my little brother; he has to hearken to me. However for J. Cole, he has to seek out his personal course and I’m going to provide him the instruments. Stargate made humongous information with Rihanna; Wiz Khalifa “Black and Yellow”. Greatest songs on the planet. You don’t wish to go sit with them? Effective.
On the backlash to him being a billionaire:
The one factor I heard developing was the American dream. “You could possibly make it, in the event you pull your self up by the bootstraps.” I heard that my total life — till we began being profitable. Then it was like, “You’re promoting out since you’re creating wealth.” Individuals had this attract for the “struggling artist” – that’s a thoughts sport, what we’d name, again within the day, “tricknology”. I’m not going for that.
I make artwork first after which I guarantee that I’m compensated for my artwork. I didn’t get right here by benefiting from individuals or benefiting from the loopholes within the system, or some wrinkle in a capitalist construction. That construction exists; I simply see the world for what it’s, not for what I need it to be. I’m a realist. It’s not idealistic. Individuals communicate concerning the world how they wish to see it. You’re by no means going to win like that.
I’ve to cope with the truth of the world, and I’m going to navigate this world, not just for me, however for a bunch of those that’s been disenfranchised by a system that doesn’t play honest for us. To ensure that us to progress ahead, now we have to cope with the world the best way it’s.
Typically which means going out and beginning your individual firm. Typically which means partnering with established firms as a result of that’s the world that we stay in. [There’s] nowhere you’re going to go that Black individuals management distribution and management media. In some unspecified time in the future, you’re going to need to associate with anyone.
On unlikely recommendation from Jon Bon Jovi:
That is the strangest factor, however you get recommendation from locations that you just simply wouldn’t anticipate it. Once I took the president job at Def Jam [in 2004], Jon Bon Jovi instructed me, “You’re an artist. Don’t neglect you’re an artist.”
