Jay-Z dropped a lot of gems in his new interview with Gayle King, including an explanation of why getting his masters back was such a significant moment for him.
While the pair were touring the "Book of Hov" exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library, the mogul said he would never sell his masters.
“I get why people do it,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to make money in this place, but for me, [that] was the fight of my life.”
He continued, “From being an independent company from the beginning and then going through the Def Jam system, not really understanding how that works and them having my masters, then going back to Def Jam as the president and then saying, ‘Okay, I’ll do this job and part of this job is my masters [have] to revert back to me.
“I want my kids to see my work. If they decide to sell it, then it’s up to them.”
The conversation also saw the pair discussing whether Hov’s daughter, Blue Ivy thinks he’s cool. “Blue, she be frontin’ on me a little bit, but she—I catch her,” he told King. “I catch her in the corner, you know? Now she asks me if this cool, her sneakers or whatever she’s wearing.”
Elsewhere, the 4:44 rapper revealed what it would take to get him back in the studio: "I'll say I wanna make music, but it has to be something important," he shared. "I don’t wanna just make a bunch of tunes. That’s not gonna serve me. It won’t feed me, first of all. ... I have to be saying something important. It has to mean something, you know? It has to mean something to a larger society."
Watch the first part of Jay-Z’s interview with Gayle King up top.
