On Wednesday (November 29), Jay-Z graced the cover of the December 3 Holiday issue of The New York Times Style Magazine. Throughout a conversation with executive editor Dean Baquet, Hov discussed his album 4:44, the racial politics of America, Trump, and his current relationship with frequent collaborator Kanye West.
In November of last year, Kanye went on an infamous stream-of-consciousness rant that targeted Jay, Beyoncé, and Hillary Clinton, to name a few. In the interview, Jay described speaking with West and the friends working through their issues with each other.
"I [talked to] Kanye the other day," said Jay. "Just to tell him, like, he's my brother. I love Kanye. I do. It's a complicated relationship with us."
"Kanye came into this business on my label," he continued. "So I've always been like his big brother. And we're both entertainers. It's always been like a little underlying competition with your big brother."
Jay went on to further detail the two friends moving past this moment of tension:
In the long relationship, you know, hopefully when we're 89 we look at this six months or whatever time and we laugh at that. You know what I'm saying? There's gonna be complications in the relationship that we have to get through. And 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. This is what I feel."
Jay also revealed information about the rumored Jay and Beyoncé collaboration album and how Lemonade and 4:44 took over from that.