IN A NEW interview with Dean Baquet for The New York Times’ T Magazine, Jay Z opened up about his infidelity, how much therapy has helped him to grow, his mother’s sexuality and his new perspective on life.
From the very beginning of the interview, Jay Z was speaking very candidly.
I was hiding. The strongest thing a man can do is cry. To expose your feelings, to be vulnerable in front of the world, that’s real strength.
Jay Z told Baquet that his friends referred him to a good therapist who helped him to realise that “everything is connected”.
I grew so much from the experience, but I think the most important thing I got is that everything is connected. Every emotion is connected and it comes from somewhere.
Being aware of it in everyday life puts you at such an advantage. You know, you realise that if someone’s racist toward you, it ain’t about you. It’s about their upbringing and what happened to them, and how it led them to this point.
He said that once he began to see the world like this, he found it easier to avoid reacting to everything with anger. He explained that for years himself, and most of the men he encountered were putting on “this shell of a tough person”.
Speaking particularly of the young men he grew up with in Brooklyn’s projects, Jay Z explained:
These men [are] just in pain. You have to survive. So you go into survival mode, and when you go into survival mode what happen? You shut down all emotions. So even with women, you gonna shut down emotionally, so you can’t connect.
He explained that this was something that affected him too, even in his adult life and in his marriage.
The 47-year-old rapper says that internalising this, and keeping his emotions repressed for so long played a big part in his relationship struggles with Beyoncé.
In my case, like it’s deep. And then all the things happen from there: infidelity.
Baquet brought up the extremely confessional and open albums that both Jay Z and Beyoncé released in the wake of this turmoil. Jay Z explained that himself and Beyoncé were using their art as a therapy session. He says they were “both very uncomfortable, but the best place in the hurricane is like in the middle of it.”
We were sitting in the eye of that hurricane.
Many people wondered why Beyoncé chose to stay with Jay Z after he cheated, but he explained the very mature approach they had to the situation.
I think she’s amazing. You know, most people walk away, and like divorce rate is like 50 percent or something ’cause most people can’t see themselves. The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone’s face that you caused, and then have to deal with yourself.
Most people don’t want to do that. You don’t want to look inside yourself. And so, you walk away.
Jay Z also says that he was aware of his mother’s sexuality (she came out publicly earlier this year) since his teenager years, but it wasn’t something that they discussed. “It was there, everyone knew. Recently, we start having these beautiful conversations and really getting to know each other.”
The pair began to talk like friends after years of silence and eventually Gloria Carter told her son that she was in love, and he felt that she was finally free and could live her life and be herself.
Aside from all of that, Jay Z also discussed his complicated relationship with Kanye West. He said that he called Kanye the other day, to remind him that he’s his brother and that he loves him, but he knows there’s “a little underlying competition” between the pair of them which has caused quite a bit of tension between the pair.
Despite this, Jay Z is confident that some day they’ll look back on it together and laugh.
