Releasing an album after a four-year gap, JAY-Z has bared himself like he’s rarely done before.
He apologizes to Beyoncé for cheating and pours out love for his mother whom he reveals to be ‘lesbian’.
On the soulful track ‘Smile,’ JAY-Z for the first time confirms hushed rumours that his mother is lesbian, explaining how she turned to substances to cope with the stigma.
‘Mama had four kids but she’s a lesbian / Had to pretend so long, that she’s a thespian,’ raps JAY-Z, who has spoken of how his father’s absence contributed to his troubled youth in public housing in Brooklyn.
READ: Jay-Z apologises to Beyonce on ‘4:44’, addresses infidelity rumours
‘Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her / I just want to see you smile through all the hate,’ he raps.
‘Smile’ opens with a snippet from Stevie Wonder and closes with a poem by Jay-Z’s mother, Gloria Carter, who recites, ‘The world is changing and they say it’s time to be free / But you live with the fear of just being me.’
JAY-Z, like many rappers of his generation, infused homophobic slurs in his early music but was also one of the first prominent voices in hip-hop to speak out in favour of gay rights.
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