The rapper opens up to Gayle King about everything from his legacy to his family life and more.
JAY-Z is pulling back the curtains on one of the greatest mysteries in his relationship with Beyoncé — the true story behind their daughter’s distinctive name, Blue Ivy.
In part two of his interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings, the 53-year-old global icon revealed that the 11-year-old’s name wasn’t inspired by a color preference or a carefully orchestrated branding strategy, as some fans have long-speculated. Instead, the name was born from a sweet nickname that came from an early sonogram.
“It was supposed to be Brooklyn,” JAY tells King, alluding to the deep personal connection the New York City native maintains with his hometown.
But, as the rapper explains, the couple’s initial plan changed as the pregnancy progressed. “We was calling her Blueberry. Like, ‘Look at the little blueberry.’ You know, it was like a nickname,” he recalls. “It just was natural. We just took the berry off and called her Blue.”
Blue Ivy is the eldest daughter of JAY-Z and Beyoncé, followed by the pair’s 6-year-old twins, Rumi and Sir.
Though she hasn’t even entered her teens yet, Blue has already earned a GRAMMY award and starred in a global tour, her mother’s recent history-making jaunt around the world in support of her seventh studio album, the Renaissance World Tour.
Fans have been given a firsthand look at Blue’s talent as she has taken the stage alongside her mother, making her mark during one of this year’s biggest tours, as she appears alongside her mother during the performance of “My Power.”
Fans have praised Blue’s inclusion on her mom’s tour, with the “My Power” dance becoming a viral trend on TikTok. At one point over the summer, the singer’s eldest daughter briefly took a break from her appearances, sitting out of a couple of stops. When she made her return to the stage during the Renaissance tour stop at Ford Field in Detroit, the crowd went absolutely wild. Beyoncé had a proud mother moment as she joined the people at the arena as they began to chant “Blue.”
After starring alongside his wife for their joint On the Run Tour in 2014, JAY was more than happy to watch Beyoncé and Blue from the sidelines for this run.
“For me, this was her best tour,” he tells King. “It’s hard to really compare them because they all have different things of genius. But this one, to me, felt like the most complete.”
The proud papa shares that he watched with “goosebumps” as his daughter determinedly faced the crowds despite her nerves. “Blue’s been born into this world that she didn’t ask. She’s been born into a life she didn’t ask for. So since she was born she’s been in, like, scrutiny and public eye, and everyone having an opinion,” JAY explains. “I know how nervous she was. I know how frightened she was. And she wanted to do it.”
He continues, “She wanted to do it the first night, and we was like, ‘OK, if this is something you wanna do, you can’t just go out there. You gotta go work with the dancers, and go work.’ And she worked every day and we watched her work hard. She had a little icy pack thing on her back some days.”
“So for her to be on that stage and reclaim her power and the song is called ‘My Power’ — you can’t write a better script,” the rapper says.
The father of three admits that Blue has only recently started to think of him as a “cool dad,” even turning to him for fashion advice.
“She used to be frontin’ on me a little bit,” JAY tells King when asked if any of his kids think he’s cool. “But [now] I catch her. I catch her in the corner, you know? Now she asks me, you know, if this is cool, if her sneakers [are cool].”
King clarifies, “She wants your advice?” to which the mogul responds, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“There was a time where she was like, ‘Daaaaad,'” he quips, doing an impression of Blue covering her face in embarrassment.
“I’m cool. I don’t know what you sayin,'” JAY-Z recalls telling his daughter. “I’m cool! You got cool parents! At your house, your parents [are] cool.”
It’s hard to deny his cool factor when the Brooklyn Public Library has turned the entire building into an exhibit dedicated to his legacy. JAY tells King that he’s “constantly learning and evolving and being OK with that.”
Speaking about his family, the Hall of Fame inductee recalls the emotional moment he shared with his grandmother while sitting in one of the exhibit’s screening spaces on opening day.
“My grandmother is the reason why I’m, like, reserved and holding my feelings in, it comes from her to my mother, to me. And she started crying.” After that, the rapper confesses that he started crying, too.
“And I’ve maybe seen her cry three times in my life,” he says. “She just, you know keeps everything close to the vest. That’s who she is. I got a lot of my ways from her. And my mother got a lot of ways from her as well. I see it now.”
When ET spoke with King about landing the rare interview with the rapper, she said she’s “still floating” from the experience.
“I can’t even act like, ‘Oh that wasn’t cool,’ because he so rarely sits down to do interviews! So I was really thrilled and honored that he agreed to do it,” King tells ET. King previously admitted that their interview, which took place inside the Brooklyn Public Library’s Book of Hov Exhibit, came after “several very annoying asks” as JAY doesn’t do many interviews.
“I begged and graveled,” she quips.
The two-part interview aired Thursday and Friday on CBS Mornings, during which the Roc Nation founder broke down his journey to superstardom, opening up about growing up in Brooklyn, making a name for himself, and his life now, as a father of three, husband to Beyoncé, and a businessman.
King shares that she got two hours with the rapper as he showed her around the Book of Hov Exhibit, which nearly encompasses the entirety of the Brooklyn Public Library. She reveals that JAY’s team arranged the exhibit as a tribute to him, leaving the rapper completely surprised when he learned about it.
“Brooklyn is in his DNA, Brooklyn means everything to this man and that’s why it touches him that Brooklyn is paying tribute the way it is,” King says. “He comes from the Marcy House projects, he talks about that and I talk to his mother and she was saying that in the middle of the night, he’d be beating on the table where she’d say, ‘You have got to go to bed.’ So at a very early age, she knew that he had something that other kids didn’t and now we’re all benefiting from that. Brooklyn is in his bones for sure.”
