Jay-Z is opening up like never before and letting fans in on a more touchy subject in his personal life: his relationship with his estranged father. Now, he’s revealing details about the last conversation they had before his shocking passing in June 2003.
The revelation comes from the latest episodes of his HBO Max documentary, “Jay-Z in 8,” where he and famed music producer and Def Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin talk at length about the rapper’s life and musical career. In episode four, which aired on Sunday, the “Reasonable Doubt” rapper shared how he had a complicated relationship with his father, Adnis “AJ” Reeves, who left him and his mom Gloria Carter when he was 11.
Jay-Z explained that at one point in his life, Carter attempted to arrange a meeting between him and Reeves, but his father never showed up. About a week later, she propositioned him again and surprisingly—he came. However, according to Jay, the two didn’t exactly hit it off.
Related: Meet Papa Jay-Z
“When he shows up, we start talking. Immediately, I’m asking all the questions, everything I wanted to know growing up: ‘How could you do that? I’m your child. I’m just like you, I’m right down the block,’” he explained.
He continued: “The first 30 minutes [he was] super defensive: ‘You can come see me.’ I’m like, ‘I’m a child. That’s not my responsibility to see you. How am I gonna get to you?”
After some time, the two actually began having a productive conversation to where Reeves was receptive to the things the “4:44” rapper was saying. As a result, the experience felt freeing for him and like a weight had finally been lifted.
“We just talked. We started really speaking,” Jay-Z recalled. “For me it was like, that day, it felt like everything dropped. If you had chains all over your body, it all just dropped to the floor. Clang, clang. I just felt lighter.”
Sadly, the conversation would be the last one he’d have with him, as Reeves was suffering from liver damage, unbeknownst to Jay-Z. Thankfully, because the two men were on better terms, the “Change Clothes” rapper wound up setting his father up with living arrangements in the time leading up to his death. Looking back on how the whole reconnection transpired, Jay-Z told Rubin that the moment “changed everything” for him and allowed him to be more open from that day forward.
“Had I not spoken to him…I don’t know where I [would] go. That’s why it was so important for my mom. She knew he was sick. And she knew that had he passed without a conversation, that I would never recover,” Jay-Z told Rubin. “That changed everything for me. The beginning of changing everything. It opened me up, but I still didn’t have the tools to know how to.”
Over the years, Jay-Z has spoken sporadically about his father and the strained relationship they had and how his absence affected him. In a famous 2009 interview with Oprah, Jay referenced the issues that led his father from not being an active presence in his life, describing his substance abuse problems and alcoholism.
“My dad was in so much pain that he started using drugs and became a different person,” he said at the time. “So I understand that the trauma of the event, coupled with the drugs, caused him to lose his soul.”
He later added: “When you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again. So I remember just being really quiet and really cold. Never wanting to let myself get close to someone like that again. I carried that feeling throughout my life, until my father and I met up before he died.”
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.
