{"id":561597,"date":"2026-03-24T17:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T17:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561597\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T17:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T17:55:08","slug":"jay-z-opens-up-about-kendrick-drake-beef-in-rare-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561597\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay-Z Opens Up About Kendrick-Drake Beef in Rare Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay-Z<\/a> has given a rare interview as he prepares to return<\/a> to the stage this summer. The wide-ranging sit-down with GQ<\/a> broached various issues relating to his career, back catalog, and business empire, as well as rap beefs and hip-hop culture at large. Watch excerpted footage below.<\/p>\n

After praising Kendrick Lamar\u2019s performance<\/a> at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, Jay went long on the beef between Drake and Lamar, positioning it in the context of the \u201cfour pillars of hip-hop\u201d: breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, and battling. Other than battling, each of these has drifted from the center of hip-hop, he told interviewer Frazier Tharpe. \u201cBreakdance,\u201d he said, is \u201cactually an Olympic sport. So that\u2019s dead [laughs]. Graffiti, beautiful in certain places. It\u2019s not part of hip-hop. The DJ was in the forefront. It was Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Eric B. and Rakim. You don\u2019t even know the DJ for half of the artists anymore. And the last pillar is battling. We love the excitement and I love the sparring, but in this day and age there\u2019s so much negative stuff that comes with it that you almost wish it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lamented that stan culture forces fans to align with one side of a beef: \u201cNow, people that like Kendrick hate Drake, no matter what he makes. It\u2019s like an attack on his character.\u201d The culture, he said, \u201ccould stand [the sparring] before because there was no social media. You had the battle and it was fun and then you moved on.\u201d He suggested the content of diss tracks and surrounding conversations had gone \u201ctoo far\u201d by \u201cbringing people\u2019s kids in it\u201d and \u201ctrying to tear down people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as pouring cold water on the perceived fallout between himself and former Roc Nation artist J. Cole<\/a>, Jay said the war between Kendrick and Drake fans had fostered a counterproductive climate in rap. \u201cI love the idea that we got so much music in such a short period of time,\u201d he said. \u201cJust everything around it was like, \u2018Man, this is taking us a couple steps back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

His mixed feelings about the beef led him to question whether the last of those original pillars of hip-hop might be ready for demolition. \u201cWe\u2019ve just grown so much that\u2014I guess I\u2019m going to say it\u2014I don\u2019t know if battling needs to be part of the culture anymore. We grew from breakdancing. We love graffiti. Before, the MC\u2019s job was to bring attention to the DJ\u2026. I want to hear what the rapper is saying. Now the last pillar is battling, and these are all the things that come with it. I hate that I have this point of view on it. I do. Because I know what it sounds like. It\u2019s just how I feel about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate text to Tharpe, Jay linked antagonistic stan culture to the ascension of the far-right. \u201cThere is clearly an agenda to silence voices in our community, a heavy right wing agenda,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAnd the culture is happily playing along in the name of this insane thirst of Stan culture to have something on the other side.\u201d He also accepted his own place in rap-beef legend: \u201cI actually regret that because I really like Nas,\u201d he told Tharpe of the two rappers\u2019 turn-of-the-millennium duel. \u201cI realize it\u2019s a bit hypocritical because of how many battles I\u2019ve been in, and given the nature of \u2018Super Ugly.\u2019 It takes growth to arrive at this place, because I\u2019ve done the bullshit too!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay-Z has given a rare interview as he prepares to return to the stage this summer. The wide-ranging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,5296,136],"class_list":["post-561597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-interviews","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}