He discusses the effect Donald Trump has had on the conversation about race in America (though not in an ideal way), his own experiences with racism as a rich, black entertainer, and why Dave Chappelle would make a great leader. “He tells it in humor so you can deal with it, but there’s always a nice chunk of truth in there,” he jokes.
Jay also talks about how therapy has helped him to grow as a person (“the strongest thing a man can do is cry”), the moment he realized his mother was gay — and how her coming out has strengthened their relationship — and why it’s hip-hop’s job to keep pushing the conversation forward.
Towards the end of the interview, Hov addresses his current relationship with Kanye West and confirms the long-standing rumor that he and Beyoncé were working on a joint album.
“We were using our art almost like a therapy session and we started making music together. And then the music she was making at that time was further along, so her album came out as opposed to the joint album that we were working on. We still have a lot of that music.”
On Kanye West:
“I hit Kanye the other day just to tell him he’s my brother. I love Kanye. It’s a complicated relationship with us.
Kanye came into this business on my label so I’ve always been like his big brother. We’re both entertainers. There’s always been a little underlying competition there with your big brother. We both love and respect each others’ art, too. Everyone wants to be the greatest in the world. And then there’s a lot of other factors.
We gon’ always be good. Hopefully when we’re 89 and we can look at this six months and laugh at it. There’s gonna be complications in a relationship that we have to get through. The only way to get through that is we sit down and have a dialogue and say, these are the things that I’m uncomfortable with, these are the things that are unacceptable to me. I’m sure he feels that I’ve done things to him as well; I’m not a perfect human being.”
Check out the full interview
Watch below.
