Jay-Z’s interview/podcast with the Rap Radar crew of Elliot Wilson and B. Dot is his first interview in years, and the first half of the two-hour interview was both revealing and enthralling. Jay spoke on a myriad of topics, the most noteworthy of which was his feud with Kanye West, but the interview wasn’t complete both because there was another part on the way but because there were some topics left on the table.
While Jay didn’t get into everything in the second portion of the interview — stuff like who is Becky With The Good Hair, for instance — it was another revealing hour for an artist who rarely lets the public in. While he didn’t get into the specifics of his marriage, or his infidelity, he did talk a lot about his kids. Jay confirmed one specific detail that fans were wondering and had mostly surmised by now: Sir and Rumi, his new twins with Beyonce are indeed a boy and a girl. “Rumi is our favorite poet,” he said of his new daughter’s name. “And Sir, was just like, man, come out the gate (and set that tone), and he carries himself like that, it just came out like… Sir..'”
And like any other father, Jay made sure to not leave his eldest, Blue Ivy, out of the conversation, as he talked up her freestyle on his new album 4:44, saying it was entirely improvised and over five minutes long before he edited it down. “I was like, what the f*ck is going on here?” he said as Elliot and B. Dot laughed at his astonished face.
Jay told the story of his first time meeting Amy Winehouse, and detailed some of her well-known struggles with substance abuse. He also discussed ending feuds with Fat Joe and Jim Jones and revealed that he missed his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame because the ceremony took place during the birth of the twins.
It’s a wide-ranging interview, and while it doesn’t include any of the mud-slinging or headline grabbing quotes of the first half, but it’s engaging and well worth the watch on Tidal here.
